Floccinaucinihilipilification Chapter 35: day nine, a hunger games fanfic

day nine: hall of mirrors

I've come down like a hurricane, sucked up inside; now all I spit out is suffering.
You said you want a revelation? Well, you can revel in this, my lover.

There are plenty of ways a person can die.

Sickness, that's a common one: sitting in silence as disease eats away at your body, unveiling the rot beneath. Bleeding, that's another; be it from a stab wound, a slit wrist, or a shot to the head, a person can only lose so much of their blood before the consequences begin to set in.

Drowning. Smothering. Consumption. Hypothermia. A noose around a sallow neck, tight enough to snap a neck clean in two. And then there's the things more specialized – immolation. Defenestration. Decapitation. Lethe could think of a dozen more, were the mood to strike him. He's familiar with death.

What he's not grown accustomed to, however, is longing.

(Hollister has brought out the worst in him. And there's not a damn thing to be done for it.)

They reached the boathouse less than an hour ago; Hollister, shaking and delirious, had clung to him the entire way, one arm slung about the width of Lethe's back, ever-reluctant to try and let him go. Only when the Six boy unhooked his hand and lowered him down on the cabin's cot did his desperation finally vanish, tugged away into the air along with the last of his cognizance.

Now, he sleeps.

But Lethe does not.

His arms rest idle in the cradle of his lap, a twinge of nausea building as he spies the myriad of scratches clawing up the inside of his forearm. The skin there's been tinted black by bruises, marred with lines of putrid filth that he's almost grown used to seeing through the last couple of months – caverns aren't exactly the cleanest place to make a home. Still, there's something about the way the mud lays… the tears lashed against his flesh, to the point of being slightly swollen…

His half-open eyes slide away from his limbs, closer to the outline of his discarded pack. The posters have been rolled up, but he can still make out their shape amidst the gloom, clearly enough to make him grimace.

Wallis and Katarzyna. What purpose would the Capitol have for bringing them back?

(… actually, that's a poor excuse for a question. The better thing to ask is this: Are they the only ones?)

Lethe begins to move, grabbing for his bag and tugging it closer, digits stiff as they fix about the drawstring. At his back, Hollister lets out a sigh, signaling the possibility of a return to wakefulness, and he does his best to simply ignore it, not in the mood to deal with his partner's nonsense. Hollister is a known problem. The reemergence of dead tributes isn't. As such, why should the former take any precedence?

… damn it.

He returns his focus to his ally: flushed, worn-down, ultimately exhausted. He looks almost pitiful now, lying vacant on the single mattress, lips parted around breaths that are so shallow they've become taciturn.

(It's sad, seeing what he's been reduced to. All his viciousness, all his fervor, reduced to something deluded and demandingly hollow. When he'd lost his head in the river yesterday, Lethe had been half-convinced that it was the end of things – that he was too far gone, too enraptured by his instability for anyone to knock sense into. The way he was shouting… thrashing his arms, and crying out for his mother – of all people to call for, his mother –)

An urgency grips him, and as before, Lethe has little choice but to listen.

His arm stretches out, hand stilling as it nears Hollister's forehead. Dark eyes trace a path from his lashes, to his nose, to his clenched-shut jaw, until finally they settle at his neck, where one blister has mutated into half a dozen, red specks from a rash that refuses to dry out. At the nape, Hollister's hair is plastered to his skin, the brown soaked so thoroughly it might as well be pitch. He needn't even make contact to tell that the Twelve boy's running a fever.

"What am I going to do with you?" Lethe asks, as his urge to touch wins out, pale fingers brushing through thin curls. Hollister's breath falters, but he doesn't wake, and nor does he so much as stir from the depths of his slumber.

He's out cold.

…

Lethe is glad for it.

He withdraws, palm tingling as he slips it back into his pocket to linger beside the cool metal of his harmonica. A frown settles on his face, and his brow pinches, drawn tight in an expression of consternation as it so often does when he's forced to ponder decisions.

He could kill him. Hollister.

Likely, that would be the smartest of his potential moves. His partner has been feverish, manic, unstable… a danger to himself as much as those around him. In light of his dwindling health and discombobulated mental state, a swift death could likely be considered a mercy; Lethe supposes he might compare the thought to putting down a rabid animal. Except…

Hollister's not an animal. Or at least, no more one than he is.

(The killing of humans has always been a thing more complicated than Lethe would care to admit. Granted, he'd rather kill a man than he would a dog, but with the disparity in their mannerisms and self-expression, he finds the process to be a touch more arduous. People tend to be emotional; they draw sentiment into everything they do, be it the infliction of harm onto others, or the compassion they nurture within their hearts. Cruelty and sympathy are not so divided in their effects as his mother would have liked to think… but the point stands, in regard to murder. Emotionality is complicated.)

(Lethe does not like things to be complicated.)

But what are the repercussions of keeping him here? Allowing him to live, when at least one of them will have to die regardless, and when his illness is already so grievous? Certainly, Hollister is still full of life – his temper has proven that ten times over. But liveliness does not constitute usefulness… rather, it's come to constitute the opposite.

(What purpose is there in maintaining an alliance with a person so short-sighted, so aggravating, so – confounding, in all that he does? Why should Lethe give up his own security to babysit a half-mad hedonist, whose grudge-holding nature has continually proven to be a curse? There's no denying that he sympathizes with Hollister – sympathizes, and nothing more, for the fluttering in his gut is something he would rather die than continue to act on – but their kinship is not enough to make up for all the trouble the Twelve boy has caused.)

There are enough confounding variables in his life without the addition of a vampire. He doesn't need this… emotional baggage.

(But he wants it.)
(By gods, does he want it.)

Lethe takes a deep breath in, attempting to steady himself. So many thoughts… so many questions. The sun hasn't even risen for the day ahead, but his energy is fading fast. Perhaps it would be better to get some rest, before the emergence of another dawn…

He shifts onto his side, slipping his hand back out from his pocket.

Between his fingers, the harmonica rests, misshapen metal glinting as it turns. Over once… over twice…

It's quiet, this time of day. He'd do well to try and enjoy it.

… some things are easier said than done.

Lethe turns the harmonica again, his flesh pressing hard against the openings to the reed chambers.

Silence in this hellscape has been difficult to come by.

Harder, even, than in Six, where he had grown used to the sound of ruckus.

(Rats chittering in the sewer vents… rebels decrying their doctrines just beyond his makeshift door… yes, noise back home had been a constant would suppose that after awhile he might grow used to it, but the noise of the underground had a way of getting under his skin. Even the slightest of noises – foot traffic from the city streets, the rattling of pipes as trains ran through the railyard – would sometimes be enough to rankle him. And the louder sounds… the patrols, and the renegade rallies…

Well, those just managed to set his blood boiling. In that godawful way that it sometimes did when near his family… near Tav, and his bullshit, and his ill-preached propaganda…)

(He'd rather be here than up in Hightown.)
(He'd rather be in the sewers than Union Square.)

His tongue runs over the split in his lower lip, and he can't help but wonder whether the cut was his own doing, or the work of Hollister's uneven fangs.

Inside his mind, a clock is ticking. Twelve… eleven… ten…

The Six boy opens his eyes.

He won't be able to sleep.

Setting his harmonica down on the floor, Lethe's head turns to the cabin door, still fixed-shut in the position which he'd left it. After nine days, only ten of his original twenty-three competitors remain, and only half of them seem to be genuine contenders. The girl from One and the boy from Two… District Eight, and then himself…

Hollister…

Lethe clenches his mouth shut, teeth grinding on teeth, the ache of his bones reverberating up through his skull. I thought we had decided not to think about him, his inner voice attempts to chide, practically sneering at his asinine preponderance. All he's been is a distraction – and a rather miserable one, at that. Always running amok and chasing after shadows… spewing venom over the girl from Ten, and her half-immobile, injured ally…

What exactly is his obsession with her?
Why does he keep dithering on?

There's a swell, then, from inside his chest. Something heavy and violent, and altogether too hideous for Lethe to want to ponder. He has an inkling as to what it is, but if he's correct, he wouldn't dare admit it – jealousy is not something that suits him.

(Lethe has never been lonely by himself; he is years away from the rest of the world, and all he's ever felt is glad for it. Feelings like affection… longing, and the hell of it… have never appealed to him, for they've never had use but to be a folly. All that to say, what he had with Hollister – what he feels for Hollister – is ignominious.)

(The closest they can get to each other isn't close enough. He sees no point in yearning for a thing that's so out of reach.)

In the end, all they are is a pair of sorry, worthless humans, searching for meaning in blood, unsaid words, and the warmth of another's skin.

What they have isn't love. It's infatuation.

And it's on a path to undo them both.

This is going to be his undoing.

Ansel can feel it when he wakes – regret, lingering like a chill inside his aching bones, unabating regardless of what measures his mind attempts to take against it. The events of yesterday linger in his skull, tattooed upon the lobes of his brain with undue amounts of detail. Much like Cordura's insults have melded themselves to his ears, scathing and filled with enmity, he cannot push the thoughts aside – nor the frustration they've produced.

His District partner. The girl from Four.

What he did yesterday was monumental, but not in the way it should have been. Killing Four was supposed to even the score, but her death has only left Ansel feeling bitter and empty – not too dissimilar from how Cordura must feel herself. For all her anger… all her ardor…

Today, she is going to be grieving.

It does not bring him joy.

Ansel squeezes his eyes shut, attempting to bring his mind back into the present. Gone from his sights, yet he can still see her; can see her upsets. Can see her hate. Perhaps that's why the guilt has not faded from his chest, even into the early hours of the morning.

Perhaps that is why, despite the restlessness that continues to plague him, Ansel finds himself incapable of action.

Though the rays of sunlight have surfaced and cast themselves over the window, the very thought of moving seems like something momentous. Morning has been heralded, but it is all he can do to contain his own breath.

He's exhausted.

(And more than exhausted… he's ready for the Games to end.)

His night was unsurprisingly sleepless, overwrought by a sense of perpetual dread. Be it from his thoughts of Xay, and all he would be faced with were he to return to Eight… or be it the memory of Atlanshi Bleumoon, trapped within a burning cabin, with his flesh smouldering to the sound of screams…

(The Four girl hadn't screamed, when Ansel finally came for her. No, instead she had laughed, caustic with insanity, her shouts of anger made all the more poignant with the injustice her spirit carried. When the hooks on his trap had pierced her flesh, she hadn't been fearing so much as jovial; oh, she was still angry, still destructive and tempestuous in her black mood, but when she died, she was as alive as a person could ever be. Hysterical. Bemused. Perhaps, to some degree, she had seen it coming.)

(It would explain why she hadn't gone for the kill, when they'd fought before. She'd had ample chance to cut him down; time to attack, skill to see a death through, and yet when push came to shove… she hadn't tried to do anything more than cut him. Instead, she'd turned away, and cast herself willingly into the spider's web.)

(It's difficult to imagine, but perhaps all he'd been doing by baiting her in was giving her the reprieve she actually wanted.)

(... if that's true… is it strange to say that he understands?)

Ansel's palms lay flat against the ground, easing his body up from the floor. Reaching up, he presses his fingers against his temples, trying to soothe the migraine building in his skull. He can't recall the last time he slept through a full night – most likely, it's been years. But now, here he is, in the Hunger Games. Rested.

There's little doubt as to why.

Over the night, the wound Cordura dealt him has gone from bad to worse. Though the blood's begun to congeal across the upper part of his arm, he can still feel it leaking – hemorrhaging out onto the wooden floor of the cabin, the flesh around it so cold he can hardly feel a thing. Truthfully, he should have patched it last night; used his shirt, or a mixture of mud and grass. Anything to try and stop the bleeding…

Though as things stand now, it might already be too late.

Ansel sighs.

He doesn't necessarily want to die. No matter how often he's thought of it, passing evenings with a blade in his hand, wondering if it would be better to sheathe it, or run it through his throat. Fuck knows the world would probably be better off, if he'd chosen the latter – Xay would be free of his lunacy Cordura of his envy, his brother of his failure. Yet for all the good his suicide would do, he's never attempted to follow it through… never tried, with all his knowledge, to remove himself from the Earth and its dark wonders.

Ansel can't be certain if it's fear, or something else that's stayed his hand… but what he is certain of is that he's not ready.

(Death is, in essence, a finality; beautiful, irreparable, and relentlessly everlasting. To immerse himself in it is to be gone – removed for good from the wicked world, with no hopes of ever returning. If he's going to choose it, he would have to be certain that it's what he wanted – he cannot simply damn himself like the girl from Four.

Regardless of how often he might dream of it.)

A cough sounds from to his left, somewhere amidst the mess of covers strewn out across the floor. Startled, Ansel turns, casting his notice in the direction of the mass nestled within the sheets – the same mass that the girl from Ten had been so protective of the day before.

(My ally, he recalls her saying, the diplomacy of her statement cut with a line of obvious panic. He's been hurt, too.)

(Eight, I don't want to fight. Please.)

A half-smile turns up Ansel's mouth, lifting the corners just a touch. Though the pair hadn't left much of an impression on him back in training, it's clear that they're more adept than he gave them credit for. They've survived, despite their injuries and lack of supplies; that's no small feat. And the boy… Ten's "ally"...

"How long have you been watching me?" Ansel asks, the words more accusatory than they perhaps should be.

The boy blinks, his charred face made all the more morose by the stoic expression in his eyes.

For a long moment, he doesn't answer, choosing instead to watch Ansel in silence, his scarring undercut by a layer of clear suspicion, one that seems permanently etched into his features. Then, finally, he takes a breath – exhales it with agonizing slowness, his lashes fluttering down. A gravelly rasp escapes his lungs, and Ansel is surprised to realize that it almost sounds like a laugh.

"How long have you been awake?" The other boy retorts, and a flicker of a smile crosses Ansel's lips. He hadn't been expecting that; not from a body that looks more decomposed than half the ones in Eight's ground, his face so ashen he might as well be death warmed over. Oddly enough, the quip feels almost amicable.

… How bizarre.

"Well, I see someone has a sense of humor," he comments, bemused by his fellow's wryness. "Good morning to you, too."

The boy rolls his eyes in lieu of a response. Once again, the room falls silent.

Ansel's interest remains… piqued.

(He's seen this boy before – not two days ago, fleeing the ruins of Atlanshi's shack, his arms slung around his ally's burnished shoulders. The way his flesh had curdled under the fire's heat was startling enough to leave an impression, and truth be told, it would have been a kinder fate for him to die than suffer on, in unimaginable pain. Ansel's seen scorch on people in Eight; scorch that caused disability, scorch that caused neuropathy… the factories could be harsh places for labor, full of industrial smelters and sewing presses that did as much damage to Eight's people as they did good. He'd been lucky enough to avoid taking a post there; with his brother's connections, crime had taken to Ansel well, and a part of him is grateful for it. But if things had been just a little different…)

It takes a moment for the name to come to him, but once it does, Ansel clears his throat, attempting to drum up some type of conversation.

"You're… Rhys, right? District Three?"

"Mm. Still got my armband," comes the droll response as the boy tilts his head in Ansel's direction. "The Three isn't in question."

With that, the other tribute shifts his shoulder as if to show off the thin, purple stripe, and the large black number emblazoned on it. As he does so, Ansel can't help but survey the damage that's been done to his face; the blistered skin, molting outer layers off the closer it is to his jaw… his mottled lips and half-white eye, overtaken by an array of early scarring…

He remembers all of it. Atlanshi's scream as the flames ate up his supposed haven, consuming the walls with ashen blaze. The fire flared up so quickly that Ansel scarcely had time to process it, but he'd seen the smoke billowing out from the windows – felt it filling his lungs with soot and shame. Even now, it doesn't take much effort to summon his emotion… to think about just how fortunate it was for him to not only set the blaze without hassle, but to escape from it quickly, enough that he managed to remain unscathed.

(Clearly, someone else hadn't been as lucky.)

(Clearly, the boy's suffering was caused by him. It's hardly even a matter of question.)

Rhys speaks, then, and his voice is jarring. "You're from Eight, aren't you? The creepy one that caused that argument in the mess, back when we were training?"

"Creepy is subjective," Ansel says, properly shaken from his reverie. "But yes – I'm from Eight."

Three nods, his expression indistinguishable. "Tell me, then. Was it true what your District partner said, about why you're here?"

"Does it matter?" Ansel responds, unable to keep defensiveness from leaching into his words. The floor creaks as Three shifts his position, leveling him with a disconcerting glare.

"Yes," he says. "It does. I don't give strangers the benefit of the doubt when I hear something that unsettles me; if you being here causes a threat to me – or to Pangaea –"

"It won't," Ansel responds, shaking his head. Rhys' brow lifts, in spite of the wince that the gesture seems to cause, and the Eight boy lets out a huff, sparing one glance up to the window, then letting it drop to his feet.

"People in Eight say a lot of things," he elaborates, his tone softer now, less… abrasive. "Very few of them have basis in fact. Cordura was just trying to rattle me."

"So she was… what? Shouting provocations in order to get a reaction?"Rhys seems skeptical for a moment, but as Ansel's eyes meet with his, his guard seems to relax… if only a touch. "If that's true, then I can sympathize."

"I know what everyone thinks about me," Ansel says plainly, once more averting his gaze. "But mark me, Three, I never messed with any corpses. Stole from them, sure, but nothing more."

He sighs, toying with a stray thread on his uniform shirt.

"The Capitol loves a good story. My neighbors sensationalized the truth, and Panem just ate it up. But isn't that the plight of people like us? The ones who start with fucking nothing, choose shady avenues to try and make our earnings? I'm not the same as you, Three, but I'm also not so different. You had sex work, I had theft – figured the dead didn't much need their things any longer, so why not use their trinkets to benefit my own survival? I'm the one that has to live in this fucking world."

His teeth sink into his tongue as the vent draws to a close, pushing deep enough to draw out blood. Ansel frowns, something hurt pressing at the corners of his eyes, building up behind the dark orbs with an impossible sense of frustration.

He knows he's lying; to Rhys as much as himself. The things he did in the name of survival… of having a life, and a reason for it… went far and beyond what is acceptable. And yet…

He continues to speak in falsehoods. Deny reality, because it's easier to conjure a lie than facehis fucking truth.

Xay, much like Andre, would have little love for the person he's become. Especially after all the wrongs he's done in their name. Killing his cousin, his colleagues, his friend… perpetuating horrors in the shape of illicit drugs and vivisection…nurturing his grudges while damning the innocent, hells, he can still see Four's sea-blue eyes, wild and reckless and as melancholy as his own reflection…

I was wrong, he thinks, and the wound in his arm begins to tingle, pain radiating down his bicep and elbow, coming to rest at the tips of his fingers. I was wrong about everything. Andre, Kanessa, Atlanshi…

(He's become desperate in his madness… and mad in his desperation. And when he thinks of it like that…

It feels almost poetic.)

Ansel's eyes squeeze shut as he turns away, his own untrue words seared into his memory, lost amidst fragments of the nightmares which haunt him.

Flames dance in the corners of his dark vision, flickering between the gaps in his eyelids, places that even willful blindness cannot obscure. Inside his lungs, his nerves begin to tremble, dead fingers easing their way up his throat until they finally come to rest on the dryness of his tongue. Panic grips his heart even as apathy dulls his senses, and from somewhere in the distance, he can almost see the justice – the vengeance.

(He thought it could be beautiful.)

(No, he thought he could make it beautiful. Death and life and all the stages between… his love was to be his masterpiece, but the arena was his proper canvas, rife with space for the illustration of misery. From the moment he set foot in the Capitol, Ansel had primed himself to be the villain; to tear apart his fellow tributes and create a mosaic from their inevitable destruction, using their pain to quench the woe that lived in his soul, empty, senseless and ever unyielding.)

(He thought he could have roses without their thorns, but it's impossible for art to exude beauty when its very message is both outlined and written in blood. Kanessa was never to blame for his ineptitude; Cordura was never to fault for his failure. He's been trading in hatred since he was old enough to know what hate meant, but all it's done is leave Ansel blind.)

(Once, he was a child who wanted only to save things. Now, he's given his soul out of want to see the world burn.)

The acts he's perpetrated are unforgivable.

Three alone is evidence of that.

"When do you think she'll be back?" Ansel asks, the cadence of his words less concerned than apathetic. He can hear the fabric of bedcloths rustle as Rhys adjusts his position, wood creaking as the other boy eases himself from the ground. It's difficult not to be wary, with his back still turned and leaving him to feel exposed. If Three were to want him dead…

"Depends," the other boy speaks, a touch less raspy than before. "Why do you want to see her?"

Ansel glances back over his shoulder as Rhys sits up, the melted flesh of his face all the more pronounced when exposed to the windows' light. He swallows, mouth overwhelmed by a mounting dryness – one he can't seem to rid himself of. His tongue feels thick, his throat parched…

But he speaks anyhow.

(He always does.)

"Your friend," the Eight boy acknowledges, turning his notice back on the rest of the room, "offered to help patch my arm in exchange for supplies. I was rather hoping we could get it out of the way. Maybe if she hadn't – "

As if on cue, the door to the cabin swings open, light casting out over the well-worn floor. Rhys' head raises to catch sight of the figure, and as Ten slips back inside, he gives her a nod, the very motion seeming to pain him more greatly than the act was worth.

Ansel bites his tongue, cutting his previous words off before they can be said.

"Morning," he greets, and Ten gives him a smile – a little cautious, a little distant, but far more friendly than what he was expecting, given their precarious circumstance.

"It's nice to see you both up and about," she acknowledges, her own arm still braced against her chest, secure in a handmade splint. "After last night, I'd almost thought…"

Her teeth worry her lower lip. Finally, she turns away, moving to sit cross-legged atop her own makeshift bed.

"Well. It doesn't really matter, now."

Ansel's attention drifts back to Rhys, finding the Three boy's gaze has once again been affixed to his back. There's obvious doubt in his stare as he examines him – obvious doubt, and obvious concern, which Ansel can admit is deserved. While Three isnt quite as prickly as before but it's clear that there's still limited trust – and that he, unlike his ally, would never have agreed to parlay over their shared misery.

Still, at least for now, they seem to be at an impasse.

(He'll need to be careful not to disrupt that.)

"I have some food," Ansel admits then, returning his focus to the girl from Ten. "In my pack. I'll share it, once you're ready to look at my arm."

"Is that how it is?" Rhys asks, but Pangaea simply nods, agreeing to the terms without trying to prompt an outcome.

"That's how it is," she tells her ally, keeping watch on Ansel. "We had an agreement."

Agreements can change, Ansel thinks to himself, but he doesn't dare to voice the thought out loud, especially when he's sure both are thinking the same thing. With his good arm, he reaches out and grabs for his satchel, hauling it into his lap to undo the string which holds it closed – and reveal the remainder of his bounty.

"Trade for a trade," he comments, backing the girl's words. "Don't worry, Three. I'll be out of your hair soon."

Rhys' eyes remain trained on him, narrowed and uncertain. The hair on the back of Ansel's neck continues to prickle, almost as if in warning, but he brushes the feeling off, putting his paranoia aside for the time being.

He's had enough clashes in the last few days. There's no need to be instigating anymore…

… but it might be inevitable.

Let's just hope, Ansel considers, ignoring his thudding heart, that Three doesn't realize I'm the one who gave him those scars.

Morning comes, and the world is lifeless.

The door's still open at the top of the stairs, unlatched at the handle with its key still in his pocket. Kellen's movements are sluggish when he finally exits from it, his boots like bricks over the spiral stairs as he climbs them, one by one, up to the top.

Elysia, as he'd expected, is nowhere to be found.

She isn't gone, though; regardless of how much she wants to be rid of him, there's a string that's clasped about her hands, tying them to his with a thread so mired in guilt she can't do anything to escape it. That's why she'd returned, the night before – followed him down to the basement, where their bedrolls were still made up, stretched out over the cement ground with little padding to save their backs from strain. Neither of them had spoken a word as they tucked themselves into their sleeping bags, and honestly, they were better for it. Kellen isn't even sure what's left to say, in the aftermath of the Careers' blowout.

The lies were one thing. The machinations, another. But Jade's death…

Jade's death made ghosts of them all. Elysia, more than anyone.

He still doesn't understand how she'd managed to fall unconscious, but a part of him had envied the ease with which she slept. Kellen could hardly get a wink.

But maybe that's not a surprise, given what he's done.

Quite honestly, he shouldn't be capable of sleep.

Not after the fire, and the beating, and the sight of Jade's face, emblazoned forever on his psyche. Killers are the ones who are damned from rest; damned from quiet, damned from peace… there's no rest to be had for the wicked.

(There's no rest to be had at all.)

His teeth sink into the outer crust of the bread, pushing hard in order to make a dent against the hardened shell. Like most of what remains in his pack, the roll itself is half-stale, having clearly seen better days. Kellen can't bring himself to care, though; his options for food are limited, after Six and Nine made off with the bulk of their supplies. And after his chat with Elysia the day before…

Kellen's mouth settles into a grimace. Alliances have never been half as beneficial as they're cracked up to be, but with her, at least he'd had a chance. For as much as he loathes to admit it, the One girl's presence had been an ace up his sleeve – the last card in his fucking playbook, with how fantastically everything else had shattered. If he could've salvaged their arrangement, at least in fucking part…

He tears another chunk from the roll of bread, chewing it with gnashed teeth. The back of his throat seems to pulse and ache as he makes to swallow, crumbs catching in his windpipe as if they're trying to choke him up.

I'm sick of this shit. All of it, he thinks, forcing the anger to the back of his mind. A cough escapes him as the bite goes down, and without a moment for reprieve, he tears into more of the roll, the stress of the situation making him feel half-ravenous. Fuck Jade. Fuck Patron. Fuck Tatiana.

Fuck Two for all their bullshit.

Fuck the Capitol, for thinking they could put me here.

Nobody else has to worry about their fucking repercussions. Nobody else has to care.

He scoffs, tossing the last bit of his breakfast down upon the window's basin. He supposes he doesn't really have much right to complain – he isn't injured, and he isn't dead. With the rest of the week's events taken into account, there's no doubt that his experience thus far has been fortunate, despite the fact it feels anything but.

I just have to keep moving. Acting, not reacting.

… I have to make myself the deadliest piece on the board. That's the only way I get ahead now. That's how I win.

(...)

(Is winning really what I want?)

Outside, the sky's started to turn wintry, shades of frost worn through with charcoal lines, the layers almost reminiscent of bedrock, lining the side of the mountains back home. The scent of rain lingers in the air, fresh enough to penetrate the inch of space between the window's panels, and when Kellen casts his eyes to the latch, he can see droplets beading on the wooden sill.

"Great. Yet another fucking storm." Kellen exhales, his shoulders slumping. "That's exactly what I wanted to start my day. Exactly, exactly…"

His hands brace against his head as he turns around, restlessness rushing through his limbs. One more second, and he turns back, too distracted to keep his focus.

(If the only audience he has is the dead, it's probably better not to speak out loud – not unless he needs to, at any rate. The only thing talking will do here is draw attention, and honestly, that's the last thing he wants to achieve. Notice isn't a positive where competitions are concerned.

'Ailith' found that out the hard way.)

The grimace on his face becomes a blank line, whatever fresh air remains in his nostrils overtaken by the scent of smoke. He leans forward, nearing the wall, and slams his hands down upon the half-inch sill, wood splintering under his fingers. Sick, I'm sick of it, I'm fucking – !

She's still down there, he thinks, hatred pulsing inside his skull, directed more at himself than the reek of the rebel's memory. Jade.

The thought of his District partner, dead and rotting in the cellar beneath his feet, is an unwelcome one. Whether that's because she didn't deserve the death he gave to her, or because she's a reminder of just how far he's fallen, Kellen can't rightly say – but the point stands.

He doesn't want to think about her.

And he doesn't want to think about the fact that he killed her.

Kellen pulls back from the window, snatching the roll up from where he's left it upon the sill.

(If he blinks, he can still see the body. Lying there behind the bars of a cage, her bones coated in soot and doused with a layer of black ash. Skin, melted away from them as if it were rubber…)

It doesn't take long, this time, for him to polish it off.

Once the last of the stale crust is gone, he brushes the crumbs from his hands and clothing, sparing a final glance into the gray shroud beyond the glass. Then, perfectly numb, he turns his back.

Sometimes, the best thing to do with feelings is ignore them – let the pain drain away until everything's grown numb, listless and empty and forever nagging. As much as the void seems to drain him, he'd rather be apathetic than full-to-bursting.

Even if it's near impossible.

(For all he's fought to try and bury it, Kellen Akos has never managed to stifle the poison that lives inside him.

It's likely that he never will.)

There's a reason he turned out like this. A fucking rat with no discernible talents beyond spilling blood, who's spiralled enough to lose even the fragments of his control. He thought he could play the board to his advantage, but he was wrong – wrong, because he never had a plan for managing the endgame, forging on without his wiles to hide behind, no pawns, no plots, no promises set to unravel. The only impression he's left on his District is that of a spectacular fucking shitshow. And he hates it.

He hates everything.

His nails bite through the flesh of his palms as his shoulders begin to tremble, gripped by a tumult his body can't contain. Rage, he thinks, is gripped in the hands.

(Rage is stuck in the throat, suppressed.)

Kellen's teeth clench, the saliva pooling in his mouth in such a way that his breath seems acrid. Even now, he can see the imprint on the grass where she lay – can hear her words in his ears, just as despondent as his wretched parents, so lost to their variety of hedonistic addictions they were practically zombies cashing in on death.

Rage is power, but it is also weakness. My weakness…

Beyond the cabin's broken window, the summer wind begins to whistle. A breeze rustles the branches of the trees, casting itself against the wood of the lodge with force enough to make the walls groan. The sun, still, is nowhere to be found.

Clouds begin to stretch on the gray horizon, and all he can see is a haze of ash.

Jade.

The Two boy unclenches his jaw and sighs. It's too late to change the past. Frankly, it's too late for a lot of things.

He supposes he'll just have to make do. Let his weakness be a promise kept. There's no reason his anger can't be an asset, when it's already seen him this far. If he keeps his eyes set on the end goal, plays the game just like he's meant to…

There's a chance that he can still win this. Not only the Games, but Vaclav's gang, his empire, his respect. Staying the course is the best way to keep himself ahead of the competition; right now, the last thing he needs is an impending storm. Even if a part of him almost wants —

No.

You play the Game, and you get home. There are no "maybes" or "althoughs" or "what ifs." The Capitol made the rules simple: a fight to the death, one sole survivor. It's survival of the fittest, Kell.

Kellen closes his eyes. For a second, it's like he can feel Vaclav's hands on the sides of his shoulders, forcing him into a pre-determined stillness.

You better fucking show them you're the fittest. Got me, kid?

…

His fist smashes into the wooden sill, knuckles splitting as he lets loose a scream. The anger inside it is roaring, louder than it has any need to be, but Kellen doesn't care – the rest of Panem deserves to hear him.

If anyone should regret what happened to Jade, it's the Capitol. Kellen isn't responsible for her death. He isn't responsible for –

For any of it.

(Vaclav, the Capitol… they're all the same. And he's nothing more than the beast that they've turned him into.)

(Liar.)

With a snarl, Kellen withdraws his mangled hand, wrapping his unmarred palm tight about his bloody fingers. Tearing his gaze from the window, he steps back into the darkness of the cabin, allowing the shadows to slide over his body until they've practically swallowed him. Everything will fall into place. Whether Elysia's on my side or not, I'm the one that's holding the cards here. I'm the one that the others should fear – a killer, a monster, not the pawn that everyone suspected. I'm stronger than that. I've always been – always, always been –

Alone.

(He thought acceptance might be enough to save whatever remnants were left of his humanity, but all it's ever done is weaken him. Even respect feels like a futile gesture, dangled before the eyes of someone who is undeserving. Murder and manipulation… thievery and tumult… there's nothing Kellen Akos is good for if it doesn't involve betrayal. Merely denying that isn't going to change it.)

He doesn't need Elysia. Just like he doesn't need Vaclav, or Dax, or Kayla, or Kaden, or – the worthless junkies that had the gall to birth him. The gang, his family – all of them can fucking burn.

Everything he's done, everything that brought him here… the good, the bad, the things in between… they were borne from his decisions.

(His, and nobody else.)

Pushing his hair back out of his face, Kellen turns on his heel, surveying the empty lodge, and the many tables that sit barren around him. No supplies, no allies – no contingency plans holding him back.

Elysia.
Tatiana.
Patron.

He'll wring the life from every one of their necks, and he won't bother making it pretty.

After all, only one of them is destined to wear the Victor's crown.

Why shouldn't it be him?

Maybe it should have been him.

On the steps of Cabin Seven, Patron twirls a blade of grass between his fingers. It's hard to believe it's only been a couple days since Ailith's death; since he and Tati ran from the Careers, eschewing their supposed safety net for a guarantee of freedom, the choice not without a heavy cost. If it weren't for the girl from District Two, he has no doubt that both of them would be dead, somewhere in the lodge's depths.

(Dead, without anyone to miss them, or mourn over the sight of their bodies.)

(Dead, for a plan that was doomed to fail from the start. They should have left before they ever went to the basement; fleeing would've been easier in the daylight, in the mess, before the three of them were trapped at the bottom of a stairwell, with nowhere to go but around and up. They'd thought they could lock the others in; blockade the room after stealing the supplies, but without Kellen's key, the entire plan had been remiss. If only they'd have thought of that sooner. If only they'd have been just a little smarter, just a little faster – )

(But they hadn't. And Ailith Echeverry is gone because of his mistake.)

Even now, he can scarcely believe it.

What she'd done had been a sacrifice - and one that hardly made sense. After all, they hadn't known each other for all that long. He certainly wouldn't have even called them friends. Yet when there was a choice needing to be made, Ailith had ultimately been the one to make it; she'd cast herself into the fire to give the rest of them a chance at getting away. Thanks to her, both he and Sic had managed to escape Elysia's wrath… and Kellen's lies…

He plucks another blade of grass from off the ground, arm slotted between two posts on the porch's rail. It seems like it's going to rain today; perhaps the change will be a welcome reprieve, after having the sun beat down on them continually. It might not do much to purge the smell of ash – both in the woods, and emanating from the lodge – but it would at least make him feel cleaner. Less… incongruent, within his own skin. Almost as if he were finally washing his hands of the Games' madness… of their past sins…

A creak sounds from over his shoulder.

Patron's head raises to meet with a familiar sight.

"Good morning," the Six girl greets him, stretching her arms out wide as she emerges from the door of the cabin.

"Technically, it's afternoon," Patron responds, without missing a beat. Pedantry, to him, is something natural – a habit he's used to try and keep from acknowledging tension, figuring if he can stave off a more serious conversation, he'll have more time to collect his head.

(Tati knows, he's certain. In a way, she might even understand: there's an allure to avoidance, and the art of distraction. It's far simpler to carry on when you're able to ignore the elephant in the room, or at least deny the true mass of it.)

(That's a lesson his parents taught him, actually. How proud they must be, to see him using it now.)

Patron chuckles faintly to himself, his mouth running dry at the thought of his family. It's better not to dwell on them – question what they'd make of his actions thus far, ir the reputation his tribute status most likely had garnered. Doing so will only put him in even worse of a bind, and he's got enough issues to focus on in the present, without allowing his head to drift.

He discards the bits of back into the mud, wiping his hands off on the khaki fabric of his to leave the questions for another time – perhaps one where he's finally managed to get his shit together. Not that he supposes that's likely to happen anytime soon…

Tati plops down next to him on the rickety steps, shifting in close, then closer still. Though the proximity is familiar, her silence in the moment is something new. Almost… delicate.

(He's not entirely sure how to broach it.)

"It's pretty today," his ally comments, looking out over the trees. Her eyes seem to settle on the periwinkle sky, obscured in part behind a layer of artificial clouds. Patron's gaze follows, and eventually, he hums, grazing his teeth across his bottom lip as he attempts to drink in the sight.

(Nine, he recalls, was almost always grey. Though the summers were full of blue skies, the land seemed to be stuck in a state of perpetual misery, with despair hiding just out of sight beneath the golden fields and stone-bank rivers. It became most obvious in the autumn, when the farmers' crops seemed to wither and die, and all the tillers had left to pluck from the earth were dry bits of cornhusk and seeds left behind by wheat stalk. Not to mention the dropping temperatures… or the drying wells…)

"I didn't take you for a rain person," Patron admits, shifting so his back is against the stair post. "Feeling a bit homesick? All the sunny days covered in blood finally starting to get to you?"

"Do you have a setting other than 'asshole?'"

Patron simply shrugs one shoulder.

"Sometimes," he admits, turning his head to the side. "Maybe one of these days you'll get to see it."

Strands of dark hair fall across his face, obscuring the space before his eyes. He doesn't necessarily mind – it makes it easier, somehow, not having to look Six in the eye. Tati isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he has no doubt that even she can see his conflict as of late; both the storminess, and the vulnerability that it seems to have conjured.

… vulnerability. Now isn't that a thought.

Quiet takes hold of the porch, and Patron finds that he doesn't mind it. Perhaps a few days ago it might have been awkward, to merely sit with the Six girl and watch the clouds pass, but recently, their dynamic has shifted.

They've fallen into a camaraderie, him and Tati.

(And whether or not he wants to admit it, he can't deny that their symbiosis was something that he direly needed.)

Patron's arms uncurl from around his knees, his attention returning to the cabin circle. Thirteen little buildings, all nestled around a pit. Twelve standing proud, stable on their foundations, while one has been burnt right down to its bones, the only thing left to remind of its existence an unfortunate, ugly skeleton. The symbolism was evident before, but the emotion the sight evokes is different than it was a week ago; different, because the thought of rebellion feels all too real, especially when he can still hear her shouting…

Patron, you don't have to do this.
Patron, please! We're District partners – !
There's two of us and one of her.
Just let me up and I can help you, I swear I'll help you –

(Patron, listen to me. You have to win. Nine needs the money. And my brother –)

He takes a deep breath, in through his nose. Then, slowly, he begins to exhale, holding his cool to the best of his ability.

Ailith may be the fresher of the arena's corpses, but Thomasin is the one that will haunt him.

For the last two nights, he's found himself unable to sleep, his unconscious mind plagued by dreams of her mangled body. Her split throat leaking blood out onto a mess of dirt and twigs… the alizarin fluid staining his hands so thoroughly he can scarcely make out the color of his flesh underneath…

Her death is not only on his hands, but thoroughly ingrained into his memory. Like a bitter reminder of how fleeting human life can be… how little his own really seems to matter…

… how far he's already fallen, and how the vertigo shows no signs of letting up…

Patron's teeth grind together, his jaw aching as it's forced to clench. He hasn't wanted to acknowledge it – the reality of his life outside of the Games, how little he would really have left to return to – but the closer he draws to a potential end, the more he's forced to acknowledge Nine's truth.

His District has been cursing his name since they first heard it, for reasons that go beyond the obvious. His heritage, his wealth… his inability to act as if he cares about their problems, when his own life has been such a charmed one, removed from the realities of mistreatment and punishment. If they hadn't had enough reasons to loathe him before the reapings, killing Thomasin's practically enough to have his name etched in a black book. Most likely, they're already muttering, calling him a scourge and blood traitor…

Which is fine, of course. He wouldn't have expected any less from the neighbors that deemed him a bogeyman.

Whatever legacy was built into his name has long since been eroded. He'd do well to try and accept that.

(Eroded, by his own hands.)

(By his selfishness.
By his insecurity.
By his stagnancy, and his inability to see through the blinders built by his pride…)

Sway Cabaret all but booted him to the curb once Leia decided to sign their card. Edward left him the second a more attractive prospect was dangled before his eyes. His mother has never been anything but a dismissive glutton, gorging herself on societal gossip while providing little in terms of recourse, and his father's made it clear he wants nothing to do with Patron's newfound infamy. Every bridge he had to stand on has been burned.

(And he's never been especially good at making friends. Not in Nine, or anywhere else. Tati might just be the closest he's got.)

Denial isn't going to change anything.

Once more, the Nine boy sighs, resting his weight back on his feet. Though he's never minded solitude, the Games' particular brand feels suffocating. It's as if he's trapped in his own head, thoughts churning about like grain in an augur. Being here has shed light on a lot of things – exposed his weaknesses as much as his fallacies. He would hardly say he's glad for the exposure, but there's something about it that Patron finds almost freeing.

Admission of his faults…
Admission of his guilt…

(While before he might have tried to claim the high ground in spite of his misdoings, recent days have made it near impossible for Patron to believe his behavior is justifiable. He's not keen to think himself a hypocrite, but with everything that's come to pass, what else could he be?)

It's like Elysia said: survival is a selfish thing.

(Patron has always been good at putting up a front, but the confidence he's grown adept at trying to exude has never truly matched all that lies beneath. He is the product of a socialite's legacy, born to be successful and shaped to act with pragmatism. He grew up wealthy, grew up privileged, and as the Midori heir, the world should have been at his fingertips. And yet, in his splendor, there was always something he felt was missing… not charm or wit, not even a conscience, but something significant, something necessary…

Honesty.

His ego, like his beauty, is only skin-deep. And it has always been so very fragile.)

Patron turns his head, looking back to Tati.

"We need to decide what we're doing," he concludes. "With Ailith gone, it's only a matter of time before the others lose their patience and try to come after us. If we aren't prepared for an attack…"

"Then Kellen and Elysia will rip out our spinal cords?" Tati's laughter is baleful. "Won't that just be icing on the shit cake."

"I'm serious," Patron snaps, shooting her a glare. Tati's humor fades away, morphing into something distant.

"Yeah," she says, the response uncertain. "Yeah, I know."

A gust of wind billows up, whipping past them with force enough to ripple the dirt. Patron is silent as the breeze crosses his skin, leaving him to feel unsettled, his anxiety flaring to life just as sudden.

He shifts, feet dragging across the cabin steps, leaving the wood to groan and squeal. Tati presses her lips together, her expression almost thoughtful.

"Patron, whatever happens…" the Six girl begins, uncharacteristically reticent. "... just remember you don't have to face it alone. I'm with you."

… at least for now.

The thought goes unspoken, but Patron can hear it in her words nonetheless, fitted in between the lines in such a way that it manages to consume her moments of quiet.

Tati's eyes remain on him, but he shrugs them off, ignoring the hand that tries to take hold of his wrist. He wishes he could believe what she's saying, but he doesn't. He can't, after everything they've done the last few days… every word they haven't said, every kindness they've not repaid…

(Survival is a selfish thing, Elysia's voice repeats, surging to fill the hollows of his skull. To survive is to be alone. If what you want is still victory –)

He doesn't know what he wants anymore.

(He doesn't know if he wants her to stay.)

"Okay."

The word is empty on his lips, and it tastes like nothing. He's not even certain why he says it, only that doing so feels simpler than keeping his silence, pretending not to hear the desperation in Tati's voice, the desire she has for a partner's support – no, perhaps just a partner, in general…

(Solitude is safety.)

(You don't need her, Patron. Just like you didn't need the Careers, or Venice, or Ailith, or Thomasin…)

The voice in his thoughts trails off, dissipating just as suddenly as it appeared. There's no point anymore in trying to rationalize. This alliance he's had with Six – with Tati… it's almost begun to throw him for a loop.

He cares about her.

He cares, because she's his friend.

Maybe that's the worst part of it all. He wants to survive, but he no longer wants to be selfish. So where, now, should he stand?

(What exactly is he meant to do?)

They're trying to taunt her.

Argenta's arms are still fixed around the remains of Velezen's poster, half-bound still in the remnants of a parachute. She hasn't looked at it since she caught the drop, just minutes after his cannon finally sounded, the soft gurgling of his dead breath still fresh against her ears.

It felt like an insult to injury, then. Now, everything just hurts.

So she weeps.

Nobody is going to mourn them – the problem children of the Districts, discarded by their own snarling lips and shoving hands. The red X emblazoned over Zen's bounty shot is more than proof of that. Rebels create ruin…

Criminals don't have any power.

No matter what impacts they hold on the world, history will only mark them as wretched; footnotes to Panem's twisted competitions, a few black-and-white faces in a lineup of the Games have taken more from them than just their lives – they've taken their freedom. Their very sanity and sense of self…

Velezen was the one who helped her to see that.

(His shaking hands clasped hers, the bloody smile on his face stretching unnaturally wide. She could hear the ragged breaths slipping out from around the hole in his neck as it continued to leak, painting the ground around them red, just as much as Argenta's skin.)

It hadn't seemed like he was dying. Not until he was already gone. And by then…

Everything was gone. Her mind… her senses. Rationality and bloodthirst. She just wanted him back. She'd do anything —

("It's okay," Velezen whispered, his voice half-taken by some desperate delirium. "Everything will fall into place… just wait for it… everything… has a purpose. You'll see…")

(They all will.)

Argenta's hands tighten around the parachute she's holding, one fist clenching a wrinkled paper, white stock emblazoned with too-bold words, jet black and stark in their solitude. She doesn't need to look at it to remember what it says, but in her guilt, she finds she can't let go. Can't move, can't think, can't speak…

(You were my brother...)

Velezen's bloodshot gaze feels imprinted on her psyche, and no matter how she tries to pull herself out of it, she can't rip herself away.

(The only one who believed in me…)

In an instant, she hurls the parachute away from her, damning note and all. Her mind is moving a mile a minute, caught between memories of what's since passed, and questions about what could've been. Zen alive, her dead. Theia alive, Zen dead. Bruin, outliving us all…

He sent me here to die. I'm not going home.

(No. Velezen was home. Five is just… nothing.)

"They're nothing.
A nest of conformists,
condemning the few
who were brave enough
to break free of their mold;
spread their wings, and
fly loose from their cages,
choosing to be more
than the labels
that society thrust on them."

"We're not the crazy ones,
Argenta.

It's them.

People who willingly
throw their lives away,
damning and dooming
themselves to the rat race.

Believe me,
Five only wanted rid of us
because we scare them.

Our potential scares them.

Our freedom,
our chaos –

the way we've found beauty
in being pariahs, because
you can't break something
that enjoys being broken.

We are more
than they will ever be:

the tributes, my Order.

We are the ones
whose eyes are open.

But our oppressors –
what are they?"

Argenta's nails dig into her palm, the tips of her fingers still soaked in scarlet. She shakes her head.

The Capitol is wrong. Rebels aren't the ones who create ruin – and they can keep their shitty posters, and their asinine bounties! I don't want their fucking cheek! I want my brother back!

"Velezen!"

"... Theia…"

Another stray rivulet trickles out of her eye. Why is it she can still hear him?

(It was her, Argenta. She was so brilliant… never judged me, never condemned me…)

She sniffles, trying to hold it together. If they could have just met, before all of this… before the Games, when they had the Order and the Ring… she could've left for him.

She'd have followed him in an instant.

(I killed her, too, Velezen confessed, tears slipping back from his eyes. In the fire. She wasn't supposed to be there, but she took my shift –)

( – worked in my stead, died in my stead –)
( – if I only knew what was coming…)
(... if I only knew, Argenta, believe me, I'd never have let her go.)

(She was my sister.)

He was her brother.

(It should have been me,
it should have been –)

And really, she's the one that should have died.
She's the one who actually deserved —

(Why? Argenta had screamed, desperation consuming her. Why did you do it? Why did you save me?)

(What was their name? She had asked, holding onto his bloody hand. The person who saved you?)

(Theia.)

(Theia?)

(No, not Theia.)

(Velezen.)

(Velezen.
Velezen.
Velezen.)

(Velezen, not Bruin.
Never again Bruin, never again –!)

"Argenta?"

The sound of her name carries through the wind, one final note in a deadly song, ready to keep tune to her bitter end. Panic grips her in an instant, and before she can question anything else, Argenta finds her gaze drifting to her knife, lying in the grass just a few feet away. Same place as where she left it. If she needs to, she can make a dash for it – grab it, snatch it up, drive it into another neck like she drove it into her brother's throat, allyourfault itwasALLYOURFAULT fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou! Except…

Except she knows that voice.

She knows…

"Cordura?"

Her head lifts and she starts to turn, casting a look back over her shoulder at the world-weary girl from District Eight. Despite her familiar face and stature, Cordura seems almost unrecognizable, all the confidence bled out of her frame and discarded somewhere on the track behind her – a track which appears to be stained in blood.

… no different than your own, stupid, fucking pathetic hands. You're worthless!

Argenta's teeth sink into her lip, one hand reaching up to wipe at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Pitiful –
Pathetic –
Useless –

not a weapon not
don't wanna be a weapon
don't wanna be anything

gone it's all gone
he's gone he's gone he's
fucking GONE and it's my fault
my fault mine

should never have cared, not supposed to care

weapons don't care, they hurt and kill

all i'm supposed to do is hurt and kill

hurt and kill
bruin said to hurt and kill

i could have done it, could have won –
gone back home, but not like this,
five isn't home, ZEN was home,

he was smart, he was fun, he was something more than DEATH

i'm sick to death of fuckin' death, but i always thought,
always wondered…

i always wanted a sibling.

(i just didn't want to be alone.)

A lump fills the Five girl's throat as she swallows, easing her way back onto her feet. How is it that last week seems so far away? That Cordura seems far away, when they've only been apart for all of two nights?

She can't stand this – the pain and the losses and the separation. They were supposed to be safe together, with the cabin, and their supplies, and their game of killing off the competition; it was the four of them against the world, and it was supposed to stay that way, without the bounties, or Maevyn's District partner, or Six and Twelve and all of this bullshit!

None of this is right.

None of this is fair…

"Hey, demonling," Cordura murmurs, but the sound of her isn't right. It's like she's hollow – hollow in voice, hollow in stature, her slumped shoulders and dragging feet reminiscent of the zombies that Argenta used to sketch on her homework pages, all lifeless and fucked up. Instinctively, she takes a step backwards, her shoes sinking partway into the mud near her feet, heartbeat picking up speed.

No, her mind screams, despite the relief singing in her gut. No, no – get away, this isn't right, this isn't – ! Cordy – !

Her ally takes a step forward, brow pinching at the sight of her retreating feet. The sunset's glow casts down over her shape, and only illuminated does Argenta finally see the shapeless mass slung over her shoulder – long and stiff and undoubtedly human.

Undoubtedly… blonde.

"M-Maevyn…" Argenta chokes out, disbelief chewing away on her bones. Her fingers curl as she presses one hand to her mouth, trying to quash down the scream that wants to break free – the scream of grief, made all the worse by the realization that not only Velezen is gone from her, but Maevyn too. She won't get to laugh with her, or crack jokes between sung songs and braided hair – she won't get to… see her anymore, looking so happy in Cordura's arms, grinning the way the girls back home always did when talking about crushes, something Argenta always wanted, but never understood…

"She's gone,'' Cordura answers plainly, no room in her speech for hesitation. "And it's my fault."

The Five girl's legs begin to shudder, knees knocking together in a way she'd have mocked, if it were anyone but her disgusting self. Her ankles feel weak, and before she can think about it, they've already gone from under her, the whole of her weight crashing back down into her seat, still and aching on the dewy ground.

"Velezen's by the river." Her lower lip trembles as the admission spills out, snatching her breath away along with it. "I killed him."

And just like that, the dam breaks.

Something sad crawls up out of her throat, dying on her lips in the form of a sob. The tears that she'd managed to wave away start to break loose from her eyes, trailing down over her cheeks with no hint of reason to their upset.

Try as she might, she can't meet Cordura's gaze. She can't… see the disappointment she's sure is going to be there… the anger for her insanity, all the mistakes that she's fucking made…

"Go on," Argenta whispers, her entirety still a bloody wreck. "Say it. I'm a miserable fucking monster. Everything we had, I ruined. I don't blame you if you hate me for it. Maybe you should kill me too, for causing –"

"Argenta."

Cordura heaves the body from her shoulder, laying it out across the ground. From where she sits, amidst the mess of mud-soaked pebbles and supplies left without a purpose, Argenta can only just make out the sight of it – of her – of Maevyn,still short and pretty, with her face hidden behind a mess of wavy blonde hair.

Under the moonlight, it almost looks like she's wearing a crown.

…

She breaks.

"It was supposed to be me," the Five girl cries, unable to rip her focus from Maevyn's shimmery, dead head. "I wanted it to be me. But he didn't – he – he wouldn't let me, Cordy! He wouldn't let me, because he understood… everything, he always understood, but he was – he just jumped on me, and took the knife, and I don't get why he had to be so –"

"Stubborn."

Argenta's chin lifts, just a touch, anger squeezing her parched throat. Cordura lets out a laugh, dry and humorless, almost as if paying homage to some weird, inside joke. "Hells, Zen," she continues, shaking her head. "Right up to the fucking end."

The Eight girl straightens her back, turning to glance at the forest, back beyond her shoulders. Then, facing forward, she smiles faintly, her eyes shining as she crosses the grass, each footstep weary with melancholy. Argenta's eyes leave her face, trailing down her body until they reach Cordura's bare legs, the pale skin covered in a patchwork of mud and bruises. Two brown boots stop in front of her knees, and she almost wants to look up – raise her chin all haughty and smile in greeting, fire off some fucking taunt, if only to try and make things feel more normal. Set them back to the last few days, when they were safe and sound, all with each other, and death wasn't something she had to fear…

The boots bend, shifting position, and as Argenta watches, she can hear the blades of grass crumpling under another weight, mud squelching as Cordura's bag drops onto the hill beside her. The Eight girl sits, her movement accompanied by a tiny, near-inaudible clang of metal, and all Argenta can think of is knives, iron smashing into walls and titanium hilting into frantic shoulders, destroying things that were never meant to die.

"You know what, kid?" Cordura's fingers brace themselves against her chin, tilting her head up until she's staring her in the face. "It wasn't you who killed Velezen. It was this culture. It was this place. All the Games are is fucking shit; they take, and they take, and they wear you right down to your little bones."

Her hand releases its hold on the Five girl's jaw, one finger aiming upward to flick her reddened nose, the gesture some odd mix between chiding and affectionate.

"Believe it or not," she whispers, leaning in close like she's confessing a secret. "There was a time that I actually wanted to be I wanted to volunteer. But now… I'm not sure if it was for the Games, or because I hoped that I could have this. Acceptance."

She sighs, and turns her head, looking off toward the clouded sky, where thunder is once more beginning to rumble.

"Don't let anyone make you think that love has to be conditional," Cordura finishes, something hard finding its way back to her grieving lips. "Because it isn't. Not by a long shot."

(Zen and Vyn were proof of that.)

Lightning cracks out across the horizon, the flash illuminating the now-dark lake, glass water reflecting a sky that's slowly filling up with stars. Argenta presses her lips together, resting her arms in her lap, and gazes down at her muddy hands, still outlined by flecks of red.

She doesn't know what to say – about Zen, or about Vyn. Nothing in her head can right the wrongs yesterday left, no sound, no song, no apology. She's fucked things up here worse than she ever did back in Five, and for what jacked-up, moronic reason, other than wanting a friend? Assassins don't have friends.

Friends are for people, not weapons. And family… family is for –

"I'm sorry."

Her hand moves of its own volition, twining fingers into Cordura's without a breath of hesitation. Surprisingly, her ally doesn't question the contact – just accepts it, like she might a proffered lifeline, squeezing Argenta's fingers inside her own.

"Yeah. Me too."

Her hold continues to tighten, growing harsh enough to lividify Argenta's hand. Something about the pressure seems reassuring; painful and comforting all at once, like the way glass would stick in her palm when she put her fist through a mirror, just sharp enough to make her feel real.

And so she clings to it. The pain, the heartache… the despair of losing her closest friends…

"They deserved more than this," Argenta whispers, anger filling the gaps inside her voice. "Dammit, Cordy, they should've – "

The knuckles braced about her own grow white, straining for stability as Cordura bites her own tongue. This time, she says nothing.

Argenta thinks it's probably better that way.

The rain trailing down her face clings to her darkened cheeks, like honey spilt over wax paper. No matter how she tries, she can't get rid of the memories. Not of Velezen… and not of Bruin.

He's the one that should've gone. Not Zenzen. Not Maevyn.

And not me.

(I'm not his daughter.
And I'm not his.)

She focuses her eyes on the paper scraps, drenched and filthy on the mud of the ground. Cordura stays by her side, a perfect statue in the midst of chaos, and for once, Argenta is glad that she's so stoic.

(Glad, because she has no means of compartmentalizing herself, playing the chaos child that Five's so come to loathe. Glad, because if she has to speak about it – what she's lost, what she did – she's not sure if she'll ever stop. Not when she can still see the red spilling out of his throat… see it glistening, coating her arms and the windswept grass, the manifestation of a lifetime of fucking mistakes. All of the regret she's been hanging onto… the apathy that she'd have done better to keep than eradicate, knowing the truth of what she was up against, too many lives taken and too much innocence lost.. )

"How –" she murmurs, and her words catch, choked by the bitterness of her own tongue. "How do you make it stop?"

She glances up to the girl from Eight, her skin feeling stiff and overly numb. As she blinks, a wry laugh escapes her ally's lips, caustic with the rage of injustice.

"You can't," Cordura says. "I'm sorry to say it, but – you just can't."

Pain is, if nothing else, terribly persistent.

It's half the reason Cordura has such trouble letting go – releasing her emotions and settling her memories, regardless of how overwhelming they may be. She's too used to bottling things up; compartmentalizing, so she can hold onto everything, the feelings and the trauma and the heartache that simply comes with being. Over the years, it's become commonplace for her to hide her hurt: to bury it deep inside layers of discretion, only to draw it out again when she most needs it. To some degree, it seems like a better way of trying to cope – allowing there to be room for distance, and for separation. But there's a difference between burying pain, and trying to kill it.

Because pain will always be persistent.

No matter how discreet, how silent, how near-invisible she tries to make it, the cuts that's she's been dealt over the course of her unfortunate life will never truly heal. Like bleeding from an unstitched wound, her feelings will continue to hemorrhage – to wear her down until she's incapacitated, before they finally finish her off. All the things she's had to see, all that she's endured… so much torment, and suffering, and loss…

One day, it's going to catch up to her.

(One day, she won't be able to handle it.)

Her gaze returns to the shore. Much to her dismay, Argenta's still there – unmoving, unspeaking. Dirt clings to her blood-splotched uniform, made permanent by the wash of rain, and as Cordura watches, her body seems to shrink in on itself, folding up as tightly as her guard allows, until she's nothing more than a shadow in a patch of shade.

Something clenches inside her, feeling like a mix of bloody knees and split lips. Her teeth gnash together as she bites her tongue, suppressing the urge she has to call out – to draw her in and reassure her, despite knowing that this is a situation they both will have to face.

It's almost ironic, Cordura thinks, how loss can bring back the innocence in people.

Perhaps it has to do with the trauma of it; perhaps it's nothing more than the potency, of both emotion and harsh memories, left to replay until the wheel breaks, shattering the pictures and the sanity wheel along with it. Pain is one of the few things that can break a person down into a shell of themselves – wound them so deeply they lose sight of their own personhood, autonomy lost to a slew of questions that society does not have the means to answer. Grief has made a shell of the chaos child, and though Cordura would be loathe to truly admit it, it's fractured her even worse.

She doesn't feel… anything.

(Perhaps she should be grateful.)

She lays Velezen out along the pier, his corpse leaden in her trembling arms. He's smaller than her, yet the burden of his weight is heavy enough to cripple, taking the strength out of her back, and putting strain upon her tired knees. Rigor mortis is already setting in; taking away their last vestiges of willful shape, leaving their limbs to hang stiff and contorted off the sides of the dock, with no real means of being able to rope them in.

Cordura's eyes trail back toward the mooring post, where a length of cord hangs just over the water. Two canoes bob along the rippling surface, secured in place with knots so worn she doubts it'll take more than one tug to get them undone.

She just hopes that they'll be able to bear the weight of the bodies.

Breathlessly, she shifts her posture, rising up onto her tired knees, the cannon's hymn still ringing through her skull. The world pitches sideways as she tries to right herself, static pulsing at the edges of her vision. She blinks, a throbbing sensation beginning to bloom behind her eyelids, her ears seeming to pop from unheard tension Slowly, but surely, pinpricks of black begin to dance along her vision, darkness threatening to swallow her up.

As if on cue, her heterochromic eyes begin to close.

Death.

Love.

Two things that shouldn't go together, yet in her mind, they will be forever correlated. Cordura's never lost anything she hadn't loved, and she's loved most everything she came to lose. The world never asked for her permission, it just took… and it took, and it took, until the only thing that remained of her was a husk, hollowed out by the perpetuity of her pain.

At eight years old, she'd lost her mother. At ten, her sister.

Now, eighteen and entropic, Cordura Faux has lost the girl of her dreams.

She turns toward her – the other body on the dock, still clothed in her ruined uniform, blood soaked into the beige of the fabric. Cordura edges closer to her, unable to hold herself back, and almost on instinct, one arm reaches out to stroke her hair… beautiful, sunny hair…

Her forehead braces against Vyn's, reviled by the chill of her rain-soaked skin.

She was always so warm in Cordura's arms – warm and wild and fucking perfect, her smile effervescent and her eyes luminous. To see her now, so… lifeless… feels like nothing more than a cruel trick.

And she can't fix it.

(She can't save her – or even Velezen. They're gone, lost to a place far beyond her reach, and there is nothing she can do to bring them back. Death's embrace is always binding. And death itself is…)

Her hands tremble as she cups them around Vyn's face, laying one final kiss upon her blue lips.

(... such a fool.)

(You both deserved… so much more than this. Victory, adventure – full lives out in the world, an eternity of bonfires and gazing at the stars. Swimming in the sea and attending lavish celebrations…

Maevyn…

I'd have had you on my arm, at the casino. We could have taken all of them by storm… flipped the cards from the tables, danced until our ankles hurt. I'd have brought you up to my old sitting room, just you, and done you up with glitter and pearls. We would have turned so many heads, so many…)

Inexplicably, she begins to laugh.

Tears seep from Cordura's eyes, falling like raindrops upon Maevyn's face. Even now, her sunshine looks ethereal; golden hair framing her face like a halo, her skin soft and white and oh-so dead, and it isn't right, it isn't, but it's how things are. Her father's buried in the ground, deep beneath the mud where the maggots may eat his bones, yet she's still alive to draw breath. Taffeta sits at home, sucking smoke out of cheap cigarettes, all while Cordura bleeds herself dry trying to be what she's not.

(She hadn't known that happiness had a flavor, until Maevyn first kissed her. Hells, Cordura hadn't even known what it meant to be happy, before she was sent here – sent to suffer, sent to die, and isn't that the irony, that it's only the threat of death which has made her want to live again?)

She can hear Argenta calling to her, shaking her by her pained shoulders. Though her voice is somehow even, her hands seem almost too small – too little, too childlike.

(A child's palms weren't made to be this bloody, but for some reason, Cordura doesn't think she had a choice.)

"Cordura–"

The Five girl's motions come to a stop when Cordura stands, taking both of her wrists and bringing them to a ceasefire.

"Don't worry."

Only once her voice takes Argenta's attention does she let them go, words shifting from mumbles to whispers… then back to genuine assertions.

"Don't worry," she repeats, swallowing hard. "I'm fine. Let's just… try to get them in the boats."

(The boats… that's how it'll all end. One by one, they'll be ferried off, torn from her arms and her grip and her sight, leaving her alone to scream. She's so goddamn tired of being alone – no, actually, she's sick to death of it, of the fucking cycle she's been made to endure, too many threads cut short on the spinning wheel where her own life's cord remains blissfully intact. The loom has woven her a handful of lives, yet none of them are what she'd asked for, none of them have what she wants. Companionship… friendship…)

Her hands slide back under Velezen's arms, elbows slipping into the crook beneath his arms to nestle firm along his ribcage. With hands resting on either side of his back, his being so close that she can all but smell the decay in his skin, she begins to pull him – inward and upward, until he's propped against her like an unset column, unsteady and precarious on his feet.

(There are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death that settle into you so deep, they scarcely even seem to smell.)

She's already had to put too many bodies in the ground. But these two…

These two might just be enough to kill her.

Leveling Velezen against her chest, she pulls him to the side, using her broadness to heft him up. One hand moves from his arms to brace at his limp knees, and as Cordura pulls him from the ground, she hears herself gasp, from somewhere that's beyond her body.

Zen's legs go first, over the edge of the pier. Then his torso. Then his head. Inch by inch and limb by limb, the boy from District Five sinks into the painted canoe, and not once does Cordura find the courage to look at his face – to commit it to memory in the shape of death, when before he'd been so vibrant.

(She'd have done anything to let them both live. Anything, anything, godsdammit, fucking anything –)

"It should never have come to this," she says, setting him in place with a hand on his chest, easing him away until he's beyond her sight. This was never supposed to happen.

(But it did.

And it has.

And you know there's nothing you can do.)

She rips her gaze from Velezen's dark hair, anger abrading her spirit.

(... you're not the one who saves people.
You're just the one who breaks them.)

It's only fair that he get a proper funeral, after all the world has done and put him through. It's only fair, for her to have them watch, when society is to blame for all their suffering – her's, Maevyn's, Argenta's and Zen's, each of them a product of their ruined upbringing, condemned for no reason besides trying to find themselves, trying to fucking belong…

(Always wanting, never keeping.
Never happy, always seething.

You take
and take
and take
from the world,
and still find yourself
railing against it,
whenever it gives you
what you ask for.

You knew that three of you
were going to die,
yet you lied to yourself
to keep the fantasy.)

(Why?

Because it was easier than admitting what was coming?
Because you knew what you would have to do,
when push came to shove,
to save yourself?)

(Maybe you aren't so different
from your father after all.)

(Just another goddamn liar.)

(A hypocrite.)

(A failure.)

Her eyes, once more, settle on Maevyn, and with quickened steps, she makes her approach, kneeling down to lift her body from the pier.

(... congratulations, you fucking monster.)

This is the last time she'll ever hold her. The last time Vyn will ever be…

(Only ten other victims left.)

… real?

She bends to set Vyn's body in the blue boat, making sure that her legs are straight, her back comfortable against the canoe's basin. The tears are rolling down her cheeks now, free and fast like woodland rivers, and before she can find the strength to step away, her hands slide down Maevyn's arms to link their purpling fingers, seeking the reassurance of her touch.

"I love you," Cordura says, meaning every word of it. "I will always love you. No matter if I live or die – you're a part of me now, Maevyn. My best girl. My darling."

With a short and shallow exhale, her grip releases, allowing Vyn's body to be free of hers. She pulls herself back onto the dock, rising from her knees to her battered feet, her lungs heaving as they try to take in air.

I'm not ready, she wants to say, gazing down at the corpse-made figures, her fellows left to be decomposed and waterlogged.

When are you ever? A voice asks, and with it, she hears a giggle, too familiar for her to ignore.

Maevyn's words become a whisper as her ghostly arms curl around Cordura's waist, the shape of her pressed still against a solid back, exhausted from a lifetime of fighting the odds. Her mouth presses against the shell of Cordy's ear, breath warm like summer heat, and slowly she begins to smile.

"Don't think of this as an ending, Cordy. It's more like… a stepping off point. Y'know?"

The Eight girl swallows a strangled sob, traces of joy left touching her mouth. Maevyn's arms hug her closer, and with a breathless shiver, she forces her head to nod, acquiescing to what she knows is right.

"Argenta," she speaks, at long last. "Go to my bag. Get the matches."

We're going to make sure they're not forgotten.

At her back, the presence fades. Maevyn's memory, preserved only by Cordura's grief, ebbs away into the evening air, leaving the pair of them once more alone.

Cordura's face turns skyward, watching as the last of the sun slips behind the hills on the far horizon. In its wake, the nighttime leaves only a chill – cold waves of blustering wind, piercing her wet skin right down to the bone. She turns back to look at Argenta, standing idle with the matchbook in her fingers, and before Cordura can stop herself, she's reaching out, drawing the Five girl close and wrapping her up with her own limbs, her own skin, her own misery and heartache and need and hope – because right now, they're each the only thing the other has.

"I didn't want this," Argenta says from against her chest, her head of black frizz shaking and shaking. "I didn't want this, I didn't want this – I didn't want to make him hurt, you have to believe me, I didn't –"

"I know," Cordura hushes, palm rubbing circles into her stiff back. "I know, Argenta. I know."

A small hand finds hers as Argenta's breathing finally evens, her feet stepping back onto another patch of creaky wood. Cordura looks down as the matchbook is pressed into her palm, ready and waiting to be struck.

"We should both do the honors," she says, looking to her little ally. "He was your partner."

Argenta looks away.

"He was more than that," she says, emphatic despite her tumult. "He meant – so much more."

So did Maevyn, Cordura thinks, though her mouth remains closed, fixed in a thin line as she draws the matchsticks from their holster.

"I'd have died in her place," she confesses, striking it against the flamestrip. "A dozen times, if that's what it took to keep her here. But I didn't have that option."

The match flares up within her hands, a single spark of light transposed against the lake's black water. Cordura passes the matchbook to Argenta, and with bloody fingers, the Five girl takes it, her dark eyes already ablaze.

Cordura watches as she strikes the match, a second flame spiraling out to join the first.

And there they are, at last.

Two candles held in broken hands, burning down to the dregs as the matchsticks grow black… a symbolic flame to light two caskets, burn up the bodies along with their dreams…

She doesn't want to let go, but she no longer has a choice.

Argenta tosses the first match, and Velezen's canoe goes up in flames.

"I'll live for you," she whispers, stepping forward to unmoor the boat from the dock's post. "As long as I'm able to."

Cordura smiles, bittersweet, as her own match flies from her hand, arcing through the night to scorch her lifeless love. She does not speak, nor call to the wind as Maevyn's body begins to burn; Argenta's fingers undo the knots, and with one push, her boat begins to drift, dipping down into the star-filled water… slipping, finally, to a place far away from here…

Cordura reaches for Argenta's hand, squeezing it tight within her own.

May your light never die, Solar King.

(May your days bloom eternal, my Summer Queen.)

There's a highway to the edge, and once a night, you will drive yourself there.
Beyond the road, you will find the answer; at the end of the road, you will drink your fear.

No deaths…
…
…

No lives?
…
…

(No future.)

Panem is bleeding.

It has been obvious since the years of the uprising – obvious, in every life that the Hunger Games have cut short, snuffed out for their love of violence and the desire to see it performed. Year after year, children are sent away and made to kill their innocence. Year after year, hearts filled with courage are withered, crushed beneath the weight of the Capitol's apathy.

Ambrosia Salazar was right when she proclaimed life's unfairness.

And the King – Velezen, their Solar King – was right to call society on its fear.

Selwyn remembers when he first met the boy – two years back and fresh from the streets, filth still clinging to his skin and shoulders. He was half-dead when Aurelio brought him back, and few were uncertain if he'd survive the year, ravaged as he was by starvation and misery. Yet time had been kind to Velezen – kind, in that he came to be restored, radiant in both his mind and spirit, despite the slander oft thrown against him. Aurelio sought to betray him, and he persevered; the peacekeepers had him imprisoned, and still he rose.

The power of his soul could not be unstated.

And so, on this eve, the Order mourns.

"Velezen was the best of us," the Exalted Second proclaims, her voice carrying like a siren across the city square. With one hand firm against the whipping post, she steps forward, the air calm as she begins her proclamation: calm, silent… as if the very earth understands that this season is to be mourned.

Perhaps it does.

(How much atrocity has this ground seen? The beatings, the executions… punishments doled out with no sense of restraint, mercy discarded for the sake of Authority's megalomania. Even now, clean beneath the moon's clear light, Judgment Square reeks of death; Selwyn can smell the rot hiding amidst the stones. It was but two weeks ago that the gallows hung full with the bodies of his brethren; seventeen corpses sat on display in retribution for their insolence.)

(Aether, his mentor, had died trying to cut them down. He'd found her on the steps the next day, her skull dented and left in fragments, viscera clinging to her matted hair, once-beautiful strands slick with gore. The stiletto blade was still in her hand, stuck there with a length of cut rope and stained in her own blood.)

(He knew immediately that it was the Peacekeepers. Wretched bastards slit her throat with her own blade. Left her to rot in the public eye, just as they tried to do the rest of us; people aren't anything more to them than insects, pesky gnats they see no qualms about killing… stars, they incense me… they disgrace Five, they disgrace Panem…)

(They're responsible for taking away something true to their nature, death alone wasn't enough. They had to humiliate her, on top of it.)

(They had to break.
They had to destroy.
They had to undermine the people's faith.)

(…)

(… they're going to pay for it.)

(The Bloody Flame shall make it so.)

"In his death, he did not flinch. He met his end with his head high, just as any leader would; his intentions were true, his will was strong. And though he allowed the End to take him, he did not meet his death in vain. Justice. Acceptance. Valor. That is what he fought for."

The Second's eyes spill own with tears, her face as full of joy as it is sorrow. Selwyn's hand makes a fist, and in turn he presses it to his chest, holding it there with cracking knuckles, needing the tension to ground himself.

(Three hours past sunfall, and the sight of the body still lingers. His cold visage. His cold eyes, fixed open with implausible stillness, like windows into the fabric of his soul. They'd ferried him away on a burning canoe, his skin ablaze like factory kindling, and all the while, he had been so still. So peaceful…)

(Perhaps their Solar King had finally unraveled it. The truth of the world's corruption – of how to kill it, and birth it anew. They say that death is the ultimate answer; the only moment in which all living creatures truly are made equal. Be they wealthy or be they poor, be they powerful or powerless – be they a Capitolite, a Districtsman or a creature from the woodlands, there is no differentiation in how the Reaper takes them…)

(In a strange way, the thought is comforting. They have all been made for the stars.)

His sister continues, and with head bowed, Selwyn listens.

"He taught Argenta, as he taught us all, that no pain is to be seen as unfounded. As his children, we share one body, one mind – one heart. The effect that our King held on the… cesspool that is our District… "

The Second's voice breaks as she blinks away her tears, her shoulders starting to tremble.

"It cannot be unstated."

Her hand releases the whipping post, and she turns, exposing her back. Not a block away, a light flickers on just outside the jailhouse, followed shortly by the sound of a door, opening slow on creaky hinges.

"My brothers, my sisters and siblings – our District has tried to oppress us. They have shown us, time and again, that they are filled by nothing but unjust corruption, that they would rather pay lip to satiate their greed than work to bring about legitimate progress. Yet as they turn us away, what do we attain in justification? What do they tell us, what do they teach us? They call us the problem, and yet all they do is string us from the gallows and spit on our values!"

The lighter sits heavy in Selvyn's pocket, metal locked tight about the flame within. He can feel the core of it shuddering – vibrating, in untapped rage, all of Aether's agony clamoring for release.

She, like he, would have died for their cause. Five's rebirth has been long awaited, and as flame overtakes the old, the Sun's children will usher in the new – they will bring peace to a world born in pain, and they will allow the oppressed to flourish.

"Well, push has finally come to shove. No longer will we be pariahs," Second says, pride starting to ebb and flow from her lips. "No longer will we be stepped on. Our governance outcasts us because we do not function in accordance with their rules; they brand us with terms like criminal and traitor, instead of acknowledging the trials we've faced – the hardships that we have all endured. Even as our King sat on their highest stage and spoke on our behalf, they did not have the care to try and listen – merely the gall to bash us, to slander those who they have naysay'd all their life, in hopes that finally we would stop screaming, stop clamoring to make our voices heard."

A shout of alarm sounds from an open window. Two lights become ten, but still, their Second speaks, making her intent known to the world exactly in the manner she should.

"Tonight, Bloody Flame, we will honor our benevolent ruler. Tonight, we sing praises of our Solar King and the sacrifice he made, for his sacrifice has only guaranteed him acceptance in the stars! He is Martyr, and we are Martyr, and the Twenty-Fifth has been our instrument of cauterization! We will raze this forsaken world, and rise from the ashes with a phoenix's fire! We are chaos and we are spirit and we are freedom, and if our Order burns, we shall burn the world along with us. For Velezen!"

"For Velezen!"

"For Aurelio!"

"For Aurelio!"

"For Vesper!"

"For Vesper!"

"For Elaria!"

"For Elaria!"

"Those we have exalted stand as the backbone of our progress! They have preached while they have led, and it is through their guidance that we have come to prosper! They did not deserve to die. And our Solar King did not deserve to be reaped."

Selwyn's hand, at long last, slips into his pocket, drawing loose his mentor's last plea for acceptance, the cool metal like a balm to his over-warm skin. Raising it, he flips the top back, fingertips flicking against the wheel, hard enough to strike it on. Turning to the brother who stands beside him, he begins the task of lighting the march-posts, the first torch flaring to life with a shower of golden sparks.

"So… now it is us who shall do the reaping!
My fellow acolytes, bear arms!"

From the prison watchtower, a bell begins to clang, sounding high over Five's streets as Peacekeepers flood the square. They do not understand that their pushback is already too late – that the course of events tonight was, is, and has already been decided, by the very lips of the light they damned.

Torches lit, his siblings begin to fan out, the world immersed by glowing red. Swirls of orange and gold devour wood, climbing walls and killing streets, all to the symphony of a hundred screams. Selwyn turns, invigorated, and joins the mass, his cloak drawn tight about his shoulders, the hood settled over his head.

In their rage, they storm the prison. They storm the gallows. They storm the barracks.

In their grief, they devour the corruption, overtaking Five's plague with the grace of honest maggots – perpetually reviled, yet perpetually purposeful, as vital in their work as any laborer, any follower, any believer who wishes salvation.

Renewal is truth and rebirth is their craft. Their fire will spread to every corner of Panem and set forth the winds of change, until from the ashes they rise and become the nation they were meant to be – united in justice, in equity, in desire.

(United in their want for life – not their lust for baseless death.)

The skies over the desert fill with smoke, casting out past Five's plants into the world's vastness, and as hands seize their many limbs and bind their many hands, the faithful do not cry out.

We are one.
We are final.
We are limitless.

When the end of the Peacekeeper's bayonet meets the soft flesh of his chest, Selwyn only smiles.

Like the King, his life is bound to the flame.

Like the King, he will die in purpose.

A/N: Hall of Mirrors by The Distillers. Interlude is coming next. Sorry it's been a long wait.