Wind rummaged between leaves and petals, crossed from bush to bush and scattered through her hair. It fled elsewhere, far beyond her sight, through green and white and carried rays or rain along. They all were adorned. Grown in rich soil, never thirsting for water and stretching toward the sun. A perfect rose had to be corrected in all directions of its growth. Their shapes were controlled, measured, perfected. None like the other yet all the same. They lacked irritating spikes or an uneven stem. Worst of all, one day, when the rose least expected it, its final day came. Plucked from its soil, cut and prepared, and kept in a vase for admiration. It yearned for the sun every waking day, but most were kept behind glass.

Virgilia stretched her neck and squinted up. The gardens had been his, splattered in white like his beard, tinted in white snow on white roses in winter, and staring up to the white puffy clouds painted into the sky today.

She adjusted the white rose on her chest.

Few visitors crossed this exact path through the oceans of white foam, climbed up three stairs and through an archway. If they did, they would discover the imperfect. Dotted across and around a sea of white, her husband had allowed for colours to paint his gardens. Experiments for the joy of flower breeding, bright red and calm yellow and loving pink burst from their stems. Some were prickly to touch, bordering on the unpleasant, and others smooth all over that their touch faded all too quick. They had taken a detour that day, the man that she once believed to have held her entire heart in his palms, and who scorned at flowers with missing petals and prickly stems.

Grass stems held a basket to their heart. Pink and red lay side by side, picked up, imperfect, and remembered. Her hands were clothed in rough leather, clipping away at sun-tired leaves, plugging any weeds from the surrounding ground and assuring there was enough water until the next rain. Flowers slept inside her basket, not collected to yearn and wither, but to remember and survive.

This summer, the task held an increasing difficulty. Attention drifted away to battles against beasts and journeys across the seas and skies rather than what lived before her eyes. She had made certain to cherish specific presents—words of his included—as her mind yearned for a means of untangling all the thoughts she had gathered, all the topics she had thirsted to discuss, all the heroes she needed to learn more about.

Her hand stopped at yellow. There was an abundance of mustards and midday suns and canary tones. Plenty her fingers had moved past, inoffensive to her husband's eyes and a bore to her. She had stopped at one that had failed at its supposed goal; it's stem tilted to the left. Nature subverted to Coriolanus' vision. If not now, it would be gone by her next visit, fallen into dirt and died a lonely death.

Virgilia didn't see her visitor at first.

She didn't see how he had followed the instructions along a clean pathway. He must have been underneath the mansion's shadow for most of his track and tiny below the impressive angles and patterns and pictures drawn upon the clean walls.

No, the greenery had shielded her view from the cold shadows and observant windows. It was not that she hadn't expected him, but time in the gardens passed in a strange manner. Sometimes it rushed along like a flooding river taking everything in its wake. Other times it tickled so slow that the threshold to eternity had been bridged.

"Virgilia," he spoke. His voice was that of the wind; a low, deep rustle along the flower bushes as if it had always sat there. It travelled to her ears, freed strands of hair, and blew open the windows of her mind and heart. It enveloped her name in a soft comfort that she had not been able to summon when reading her name in his hand.

Virgilia turned around. Hair in disarray, dirt on her dress. Not put together, but the smile rushed onto her cheeks at an instant, unavoidable, and destined to be there. It was warm and fuzzy in the same ways she had felt when looking up at the sky.

"Plutarch—Plutarch, it's wonderful to see you again."

"Picking flowers?" he asked. The wind blew through the sleeves of his shirts, crammed up as hands hid away in his pockets. There was a smile between the sun-kissed face that stretched at his freckles.

"I … will press some," she said. What other flowers she had intended to pick, they mattered little. He was there. For their endeavour, it meant returning upstairs, leaving the garden, and leaving several flowers behind. She peeked between him and the green. From the rich colours to the calm smile. There was patience in his eyes and on his lips. Waiting, allowing her to think and consider and then, finally, she spoke: "We could take a longer path back. Fresh… fresh air and … the gardens are pretty this time around…"

"Show me," Plutarch replied. There was earnestness in his voice at the same pace of a lazy Sunday noon, sunken into books and grass and staring up at the sky.

They walked alongside each other. His presence ever there, arms brushed into each other, steps moving closer before they reminded themselves to move apart. Her heart fluttered in her chest, a nervous butterfly in the middle of summer, stumbling across her own words often, rethinking and trying again when they stopped at a particular flower.

Plutarch moved by her side as if he had always belonged there. Quiet when she was rethinking, eloquent when he was speaking. A flow between them began of him asking questions about flowers and Virgilia doing her best at an answer.

Where the gardens tied back into a circle to the long shades of the mansion, two things happened. The uneven ground gave way to stagger and Virgilia wrapped her arm around his before he had the time to offer. Worse, a question of his caused a stagger of her heart rather than feet and the flow had been disrupted.

His serene voice held her attention: "What flowers did you cut?"

"Oh, I—I got—" she looked down, the rose-like one falling into view first. Petals hid away the pollen. Virgilia tried again: "The pink one it's a peony…"

She looked at him right when he nodded along. More. Something else to say about peonies…

"They symbolise good luck and … prosperity—I think… aren't they, well, they have so many petals you would get tired of counting them! It's such a lovely flower, and I like… I've seen roses so often, sometimes it's a nice change. Oh, and the colour is fine, isn't it? It's perfect for pressing it."

Plutarch hummed in a nod, his free hand taking the stem and lifting it to his nose. His eyes closed when he sniffed at the flower—a gesture quite so endearing to follow. Briefly, there was silence except for the gravel underneath their feet.

When he returned the flower to the basket, he said: "There was a Greek myth about Paeonia. A nymph."

"Oh?" She grew quiet, expecting an elaboration, but he seemed to wait, too.

His steady gaze turned back to the basket. The flowers. Virgilia's voice hastened in her speech. "The next one is a … marigold. It's as bright as the sun, d—don't you think? Some of them look as intense as if they were burning away. Of—of course, nothing burns here. That would be quite a hazard..."

Her chest pushed at a nervous laugh, a faint and ridiculous attempt. She offered a hesitant smile and lifted the basket for him to inspect the flower.

Plutarch twirled the calm marigold in his hand. All round and perfect weren't it for the dent visible when turned around.

There was more to the flower, something that stuck to her tongue but bitten away as she dug her teeth into the inner side of her lip. A symbol of despair and rejection. A beautiful sun flower, but she refused to share such a dark meaning, refused to see the brows pull together at the freckles and refused to imagine herself rejected.

Plutarch pulled out the last one before she could think on the marigold's story.

"It's a…" Virgilia said "Carnation."

He nodded along. Had he already known? She couldn't quite tell. His head turned to look at her, lips open in a silent question.

"They are red. So… so they represent a—affection and… love, sometimes."

He grinned and one brow pulled up. "Love? Symbolised by a red colour? Surprising."

Virgilia laughed faintly and swept the words right off of her tongue. She still tried, but nothing sounded quite as good as in her head. "Most red flowers do, y—yes… I—uh, I like their shape. They look lovely, no? So very different from … from the pompous ones."

So very different. Like him, she thought. Of course, that was nothing for his ears, either. Had she ever seen him not wear simple dark colours? And how many did she know who did not care about the wrinkles on their forehead or the padding around their hips? He didn't fit into the pre-established box everyone had to fit into—the very same box that forced her to an appointment next week. Yet, he was so very lovely the way he was; she pictured him less bony than her husband when embraced. What was it like to be held by him? It must certainly feel extraordinarily pleasant.

"You are right," he interrupted her thoughts. Had she stared? Why was he staring back at her?: "Are you good?"

"Y—Yes, of course... "

Putting the last flower back into the basket, they had made their way to the backside of the mansion. It was nice walking up the stairs beside him, sensing his strong arms helping her safely up. She navigated him along the easiest way to the private rooms of the mansion, up another staircase dotted in a chess pattern and down a corridor. All the while her words stumbled along as they went deeper into the mansion's heart, talking about all she knew of the private corridors, marble path and statues as well as paintings they passed by. He didn't interrupt her once, despite the curious gaze moving about.

The door swung open, the sun streamed from the window front and hugged their faces. There was a bookshelf, and a set of couches, and a desk, and all belonged to her. It was the most privacy she could afford, however thin the illusion.

"Coriolanus is using the sun room today," Virgilia explained in an attempt at an apology. Inviting guests here was no irregularity, but perhaps he would have preferred—

His hand gestured along the room. "We can work with that."

"Good. Great. We—I can clean the desk a bit…" so much that had recently come up: Flowers she had sorted, letters written and received from her birthday, and then the next Hunger Games that came up and required the Snows to wave and smile. As that was her strength, she tended to mingle there despite having little clue what the fuss was about. For now, she placed the flowers aside, ready to be pressed when Plutarch returned home.

A gust of wind and the smell of his aftershave alerted her of his presence. It smelled like an old library, the note of wood and leather, of old beloved pages turned over and over. There was a lighter scent in between, those that held her heartstrings hostage and made them jolt at the closeness to him. So close by her side, she knew his gaze had turned into an adventurer. It wandered across her desk. Finding unwritten letters and old flowers, but stopping short at something entirely different. He spoke with a weight to his voice."I have never seen you wear earrings."

Her heart dropped and the faint tug at her lips died. Clouds had moved before the sun, crawling a shadow from here to there and she wrapped her arms closer around her stomach to pull at the dark fabric of the dress. There was a struggle to answer before he could have finished his sentence. Yet the silence had crept in, her words collapsed at her lips, and burned under the expectation of an answer.

"I'm sor—"

"It's … it's a birthday present." She exhaled. Virgilia's hand pulled at each other, folded and unfolded, pushed inside the bone until it whitened and ached.

"For whom?" he asked, quietly dooming her.

Virgilia pulled her hands apart as the pain became too much. The object in question had been there for a while, pondered upon, cursed, feared. Eventually, her shoulders lifting and falling, she found the moment to speak: "Me."

His expression remained a mystery. She decidedly bore holes into the jewellery with her mere gaze, wandering only as far as the edges of the desk. Truthfully, she did not need to see his expression to guess: Confusion. Bewilderment. Perhaps amusement, too, but she refused to entertain her speculation.

"I didn't know you were wearing earrings," his voice recalled nonchalantly. As if it had seemed so obvious, so matter-of-fact, and it took a place in her throat that wrung with a proper response, because it would admit too much about Coriolanus and, worse, Coriolanus-and-her. It was the least she wanted to think—or even so much as speak—about when he was here. There was blissful ignorance in a bubble where the world seemed whole and her future bright. Was it that terrible to want something good?

"I—" had her tongue tied together? Her mouth dried into a desert? She pushed a loose strand behind her ear again. Fingers stopped short there, gliding along the outer edge to the earlobe. Nothing. Skin and skin but no holes. She stuttered at something of a sentence. "It's from… Coriolanus… Maybe—Maybe he would like me to pierce them…"

"Do you want to?" Plutarch asked. How was he still so calm? How could she hear him breathe so evenly when talking? How could he possibly be so collected? She had not admitted the source of the present to anyone—not even her loyal peacekeeper—and it had sat right there for a month now while she thought about its message. Was it carelessness? Or a non-verbal request?

All contemplation broke into a single reply, all those many times this past month she had considered any angle that this could have implied, all the questions she had wrangled with inside her mind until they exhausted her. Yet, he had asked something she had not yet considered, and her reply finally found an answer to the matter itself. Her opinion, as rare as it was requested, seemed an absurd consideration until he had asked. Her lips tugged downward, quivering at the answer that surpassed her mouth so clearly. "No."

Virgilia knew many types of silences, but she hated those that sharpened the air in an utmost unpleasant tension. As if speaking up again would cut through one's tongue in a straight line.

"Then don't." He interrupted her silence. Plutarch's fingers tapped on the precious wood, an echoing effect left on the desk, and he moved aside. Was that all there was to say on this? That her personal choice was all that mattered here? No considerations for what her husband might have to say in the matter? No, it didn't matter.

In that way, she was glad he cut their conversation short.

With room for their tools and the watch, Plutarch pulled a chair to her side and they settled down by the desk. Their conversation drifted to easier topics. The watch in question and any information he had on when it was created or how it was built. His low voice moved along, sped up or slowed down as his hands aided the process. Virgilia watched him, listening with a faint heart, and drifting to outrageous thoughts. Had he ever purchased watches solely for them to work on? Had he ever thought about her when passing one of those stores that promised riches from the old world? Uncovering a silver pocket watch hidden behind a piece of silk lay her answer to that question.

It had been an antiques store in a back alley away from the avenues where he had found today's piece at quite a bargain. Plutarch had bought this watch for today to work on it with … her? So it was true; he thought of her from time to time. More often than merely agreeing on seeing her again. A strange sense of joy tugged at her chest.

"Virgilia?" he asked. His voice rang closely by her ear and she sat up straight assuring they wouldn't accidentally bounce into one another. It wasn't proper—unfortunately.

The watch lay bare before them and his fingers wrapped around a bracelet tool. The sun had kissed him even there, freckles seemingly everywhere, and tinted in light blonde hair wandering up his wrist below his sleeves.

In the absence of her words, the tool had taped onto the table a few times. Not in impatience, no, it seemed rather that she was supposed to—

"Oh, I—I was thinking about…" her view glanced upward. She noted his lips open and a crease between his eyebrows "The book you gifted me. For—for my birthday, remember?"

The crease disappeared. He nodded and his voice picked up a beat. "Of course I remember. How did you like it?"

While she liked his gaze upon her, it helped her think when he wasn't looking. Plutarch was more distracting than anyone she had met at the palace, and it must have been entirely his fault.

"It's quite nice so far," she said, sorting the pieces he had begun removing. "I knew about Zeus and—and you told me about Andromeda."

"I did," Plutarch handed her the screwdriver and pushed the watch toward her "Anything in particular you enjoyed?"

There were several that had stood out to her. Persephone and her abduction into the world below, only ever unrestrained for a brief time. How tired must she have felt to be judged, to be used, and to never truly be free? Or Echo and her love for Narcissus, how broken she must have felt to be rejected. Still, there was another story that had kept her busy.

"Medusa," Virgilia replied.

"Medusa?"

"She was a priestess … no? Dedicated her life to the person who—who punished her. All for being pretty!" Distress sharpened her voice and furrowed her brows together, but he remained quiet and Virgilia continued her reasoning: "It wasn't meant to be like that. Why—why was it fair to hunt her after all she had to endure? A trophy on her head… it doesn't seem fair."

"It's a tragedy," Plutarch tried into the silence between them and sorted the pieces Virgilia handed to him.

"I don't think so," she said and shook her head, then glanced toward him. He didn't interject despite a disagreement. Virgilia picked her thoughts up again. "All those fighters came to kill her. They knew what would happen. Me—medusa survived and was … resourceful. It's admirable, is it not? She might have deserved a happy ending. No more knights wanting to kill her. But—but hope. Don't we all hope for something?"

Her shoulders relaxed upon the final question and idle hands rested on each side of the pocket watch. It had almost been fully taken apart while Plutarch had sorted the pieces handed to him. He had moved in the furthest corner of her vision, but she refused to offer her direct attention toward him. Instead, she sought comfort in the cold metal. It had always been her foolish mouth running itself over.

"We do," his deep voice eventually spoke. Deep like a slow flame in the fireplace that ate away at the wood, its warmth inviting to sit close by and listen to the cracking of wood. Virgilia's view tore from the table to him. Plutarch had leaned back, fingers curled against his lips.

"What do you hope for?" Virgilia asked, too curious for her own good, and her hands disappeared underneath the table.

"Progress," he said as if such an answer made any sense. "In my aspirations and career. We can always strive to make progress."

It made a bit more sense, although not much. She filled the emptiness with a guess, nose scrunched into a fold around her lower bridge: "Such as your art?"

Fingers tapped against the side of his lips before he answered: "Among others, yes."

There was silence between them that left room to define the others. She had settled for the screws and gears, decided to contemplate and wonder as his gaze lifted from her to the watch and something else. It was not unknown, no.

The more time passed to push them closer to the Games, the more often his adept hands drew inside a leather notebook. Their own silence grew, not like a creeping shadow, but like the soft clouds and dry grass. He trusted her to work on the watch herself. She listened to the hums from his chest and the scratch against paper. She had peeked at watches, at scribbles of odd handwriting and at—

"May I see?" Virgilia asked.

She could easily follow his gaze that left her face and stumbled across the notebook on the table. It hadn't been the same as the one he brought last time, but he sat up straight, moved the pieces aside with care and opened the first page. An evident sense of pride swung along in Plutarch's voice as he spoke: "Those are this year's arena plans."

"Oh?" her lips rounded the sound off and she scurried closer. Arm bumped into arm, but he didn't mind enough to comment.

He drew beautifully. The watches had only been a brief glimpse into his work. What stretched itself across the first two pages was an island riddled with forests and beaches and small paths leading from one side to the next. Technical details and notes had been added to them, most of which had been abbreviated to a point she could not decipher them. He had kept the drawing in pencil colours alone, no lush green or deep blue added to them, but it felt alive nonetheless.

"It's pretty." Virgilia mused "It was all your idea?"

"That's why I was selected as Head Gamemaker."

"They were right to do so." Her fingers hovered along the grey colours and stopped short at a cliff. "A—A waterfall would be interesting, don't you think so?"

She flipped to the next page, but it only contained his notes on their pocket watch. A new notebook, then. Raising her head once more, she had to ask him: "Has it already been built, then? As it is on—on paper?"

Plutarch leaned forward, hand tapping the edge of the notebook and nodding to himself. There was one of his smiles, the way his lips pulled together and its corners tilted upward.

"Some. With a few changes. The environment is not real and has to be separated into specific zones to allow for us to manipulate nature," he answered.

"It's quite—interesting. I have never—never thought about what you must do behind the scenes," she said. Of course, that was only a half truth. The Gamemakers and their doing was a foreign language to her, but she had thought about what he must be doing there last year. Surely, the questions had not changed since then.

"My offer stands. You are welcome to visit," and then, with his voice stumbling not unlike hers sometimes, he added: "I hope I won't disappoint your viewing experience."

A silent thanks went to the creator of her foundation. Heat pushed into her face and fingers pressed onto each other. She blinked, trying her best at language, but it failed horribly past a terrible "Ehm".

"I—" he cleared his throat, leaning back into his chair and away from her. A breeze flew along her shoulder at the sudden movement of his.

One hand shot up from the table, closing the notebook. Fingers felt the leather underneath, but collided into something familiar. No, not quite so familiar. She had felt his hand beforehand, smooth skin interrupted by light hair. He had some freckles all over, and yet the touch burned itself into the side of her hand, both having reached for the very same notebook with the very same intention.

Virgilia withdrew first, albeit 'withdrew' was too fine a word at her reaction. As if his hand had been a too hot stove plate, her own jumped backward into the other again. Colder, much colder.

She made certain not to look toward him.

Unfortunately, it was not the only terribly heart-racing occurrence that day. She had only just recovered from their touch, bringing the topic back to his gamemaking career in general and finding herself busy with putting back the tools that he cleaned and laid out on the table for her. During other days, they would have handed each other the tools, but it seemed a terrible idea now. What if he would rush to Coriolanus and mention her unfaithfulness, evident in a mere glance and hand contact?

But he was a decent conversation partner, talking about his early career in gamemaking when no one knew his name. It had been then that her mind spun into places she preferred to contemplate alone, without him watching.

When he talked, there was a shadow on the side of his lips whenever they moved in a specific way. She caught it a few times before, but watching him while he spoke, certainly a view not unusual to keep, it felt ever more evident. And then she wondered what it was like to kiss him. He had no beard that could irritate her skin. His lips curved in quite a lovely way, and they never seemed overly red as if bloody or chewed on. Not too dry, either, she figured. Would Plutarch Heavensbee be a good kisser?

The thought didn't let go of her. It clung to her when they wished each other goodbye downstairs by the large entrance. He bumped into her when she had reached out a hand. Their hug felt wrong and something hung on his lips then. Unspoken words never realised while the peacekeepers patrolled by their sides. His lips were half open there, before he offered her a formal statement to see her again. It didn't quite feel like those were the words that should have passed his lips. Virgilia watched him leave, right by the doorsteps of the mansion, until he faded away not without having turned around again.

However, not all of him had faded away.

Returning upstairs where the basket of flowers awaited her, stems had to be cut and blossoms be placed in between an empty book, she had forgotten the mess that they had made. Tools that Plutarch simply kept at her place for the convenience sake—though she saw this as a promise of his return, too—scattered across the wooden desk. Usually she would have appreciated all and any help from his side, but he had seemed in a rush and it was not her place to keep him any longer.

At this point, they had collected a great deal of metallic screwdrivers and tweezers, a rather decent watch holder and countless pieces of cleaning material to polish each piece. But in between all those, and not at all akin to the book she used to press flowers, was something familiar. Leather-bound. A rough outside in dark patterns. Tracing along the edges, her fingers knew what to expect when turning the page. The drawing of an arena. Today's pocket watch. Empty page. Empty page. Empty page. She flipped through, but all pages remained empty. All but one, but he had written in such undecipherable gibberish that she couldn't make out what it was trying to say. His handwriting had been the same, but the abbreviations used and numbers and arrows and circles all did not quite make sense.

The book didn't need to carry his name—it was his alright.

It had sat there on her desk for the rest of the day: Watched her cut and dry the flowers to press them in between a different book. Sit down to write letters to Capitol citizens who had written to her (albeit she was a lousy writer and didn't come up with more than words of appreciation and thankfulness). When the sun clung to the earth's horizon, she redid her hair, sat at a quiet dinner with her husband, and returned with the book still in place.

The notebook was the wise and polite gesture to send it back to him. That was what ought to be done, of course. She knew it ought to be done right by the next morning.

It was still there when the morning came and passed.

The arena had already been built, making the first page obsolete. The pocket watch was something they had worked on together, so he didn't need it for himself. The mysterious page in the back with its strange writing—well, surely he wouldn't miss that one too much, either.

Virgilia knew it was not the right nor wise nor polite decision. Ripping out the strange page and scraping it to smaller pieces, she wrote on the page right after the pocket watch:

June 16th, 65 ADD.

Her handwriting was pretty. Having been forced to undertake calligraphy lessons as a child, it was all too wonderful how each letter swung along. Writing the date took quite some effort, and whatever would come next could not be a quick note, either. It had to be carefully crafted following two beautiful drawings.

It didn't turn out beautifully. The words themselves were, ink swinging along with each letter and thin to thick lines moving across the paper. But its content bordered on the absurd: Words scratched through, entire sentences broken off to begin a new one. She rushed an entire paragraph along without pause only to be met with a loss for words in the next line.

She had written about him and how he must have forgotten the notebook here. How must Plutarch think of a new owner possessing one of his leather books? She had written about Medusa and about her husband and about Plutarch and about Gratia and about Panem and—

The notebook was safely hidden away in a locked bedroom drawer where it would take on the scent of wood and lose Plutarch's aftershave note.