It didn't take much longer.

The trident swung in his arm as if it was a part of his body. Like a fisher, waiting for the lure to work, for the fish to swim close, and for the final blow to catch or kill them. The trident and a net became a danger for all remaining tributes.

He had forsaken the safety of his partners and when they hunted him, bigger and stronger than him, he lured them into traps. Their strength had become a weakness against the fast and smart boy.

When Finnick Odair faced his last remaining opponent, the Capitol had known about its finale before Finnick did.

Commentators announced the upcoming confrontation and by the time groups had gathered together around outside venues and inside parties, waters had begun to flood the arena itself. It pushed the remaining two closer together as rain soaked their clothes and thunder crashed into trees.

The island had become unrecognisable. It seemed all a great spectacle, its height of entertainment in the same manner as any book would prepare for a finale.

But this wasn't a book, and it wasn't entertainment. Virgilia saw herself back in the Gamemaker centre, wondering what buttons had been pushed to change its environment and where the last casket would be sent to — District 2 or District 4?

They had seats at the plaza, Coriolanus and her.

Ministers and models, advisors and actors. Anyone of influence had found their place on the upper seats as the crowd gathered below. Albeit the sun had gone down, the lights emitted around the plaza coloured it in yellow and orange.

The arena's darkness was visible, but it wasn't a horror movie in a lonely room.

Music had played, people had danced, chatter had broken out. The commentators were swallowed by the crowd, overpowered by its sheer amount as their voices swirled up into the sky.

The girl from District Two had almost died twice. The first time when the group had hidden in a cave by the cliff and aggressive waves had crushed into the tributes and the sharp stone behind them. The second time occured when they had hunted Finnick. Her knife and quick feet were the only reason she was still alive.

Anticipation lay crisp in the air as the commentators mumbled between each other and the cameras followed.

They were getting closer to each other. Forests that looked the same, treelines that matched.

The net didn't catch her by surprise.

It was Finnick who had picked up his pace, attacked from the side and left a mere scratch as Two pushed back.

She was stronger than him. Muscles glistened in the light as she grabbed him. Two slammed Finnick into the ground. Her knife pulled from its sheath. Blood had mixed with rain, it pearled down his arm and tainted the ground underneath. Two had managed more blows, had pushed the boy into the ground as if to bury him here and there.

The crowd roared. They applauded.

Virgilia shuddered. Her hand moved around, touched her other arm through her clothes and felt nothing but fabric. It wasn't soaked—neither by blood or rain or both.

By the time Finnick had regained control, mud had smudged his face and mixed into his wounds. He panted, lacking the stamina to run or to evade. His bronze curls stuck to his forehead, sweat and rain and blood and mud.

It seemed over when she ran to tackle him.

Finnick ducked, yet it wasn't his evasion that saved him.

The rain had been too much at once. It had turned solid soil into mud and puddles. Two ran. Her boots pressed into the ground. It did not hold against the mud.

Her steps slipped away.

Crack.

The screen turned white, holding captive all its viewers as the thunder rumbled. A nearby tree had been caught in its way, catching fire at its core.

Maybe if the thunder hadn't sounded, the crack of Two's leg could have been heard. Maybe the noise had been both.

Her scream of pain remained audible when she held onto her leg.

Her scream of pain remained audible when Finnick's trident pushed into her side.

She held onto the wound, blood pouring in the same manner that the rain did around them.

The crowd gasped as she trembled back onto her legs. Her lips quivered as she winced. Knuckles stood bold as her fingers grabbed the knife tight.

He must have been as surprised as those watching. If not for a last heartbeat, the knife would have swung and cut his face below the bruised eye.

Two's smile was bloody, her chuckle tired and yet her words had not been caught. The rain and wind blew too loud for the microphones to catch what she was saying.

But Finnick stood there, unmoving. He looked from his working eye, unmoving.

Finally, what felt like a lifetime as the tree cracked and burned away, Finnick ended her life.

The crowd cheered. The arena's rain lessened until gone. The clouds disappeared. The last remaining tribute had turned into a victor.

But there was a gut in her stomach. It had all seemed too beautiful to be true, too dazzling of a champion.

Why hadn't he lunged at her right away?

The gathering was far from over as the clouds lifted, but Coriolanus and her made their way to the mansion regardless. When the doors closed between the outside world and the car, the noise cut away as soon as metal clung to metal. Virgilia thought back to the District 10 girl. The empty haunting eyes. She hugged herself and stared into the calm night sky.

Two's eyes weren't empty right before her death. There was pain and fear, and it wasn't all a show. Finnick had seen them much better than what the cameras could have caught and he had watched the pain and fear die in her eyes.

The Victory Banquet was mandatory. In part, because the wife of the President could not be amiss. Mostly, however, because it was hard to avoid any kind of celebrations if they happened in one's home.

She had seen him—briefly. He had been surrounded by plenty of women and men. They were almost of equal height, his bronze hair standing up in curls and the sea-green looking out of place.

Finnick Odair had won the Games and he had been moved about as if a trophy for all those who invested in him. They gawked, admired, and showed off. If not for them, Finnick would have never received his trident. If not for them, he might have been sent back to his family in a box rather than a train. At least that was what the sponsor told themselves.

An elderly woman stood by his side, guiding him through the crowds as if she had done this every year for the past decades. Just as quickly as they had appeared, they were swallowed by the crowd until they disappeared into the night air. The trains, she knew, but their embrace into darkness, into nothingness, had seemed something to envy rather than be saddened about.

She hadn't seen him yet. His name had danced around the room, touched with delight and envy and admiration. It sounded different than the year before, or any other years, as if no other victors had mattered other than Finnick. Charming, young, skilled. If her husband could envision the perfect image of a surviving tribute, would it have been Finnick?

When he arrived, he did not come alone. But it was not the company that made him stick out from the crowd. Where there were colours on everyone, neon green, bright yellow, light cyan, he had been touched in black and an almost-black purple, too dark to make it stand out from the rest of his suit if it weren't for the odd fabric reflecting the light differently.

It was not that all eyes drew to him, not that gravity had re-shifted its centre. Rather, he was the most pleasant to look at. When the busy colours tired her eyes, his all-dark ceremonial suit seemed as serene as a darkened sky, few stars to see, but as if a breath of fresh air when one had been stuck inside all day long.

Plutarch Heavensbee had produced a beloved victor and had immediately gathered a crowd around him. This was not last year's sister. The boy from Four had left a mark on the room that had rested on everyone who had been part of his victory.

One moment, she had seen his blond hair, the other she had been certain it had disappeared forever.

There was a flow of foods and drinks, and the world began to feel lighter beneath her fingertips. Virgilia held onto the window sill at the edge of the room, following the crowd's movement of dance and chatter. Her view found one of the avoces from the kitchen downstairs, memorised their movement and those guests who intercepted the rounds most often. There was her husband's trusted advisor from the Crane family. He had grown a wide moustache that had greyed with age. A brown woman who she had seen on screen as an escort, albeit could not recall the district. And last, a round of young Gamemakers who raised their glasses each time the avox stopped at their side.

Scraps of conversations moved from one crowd to the next, dangling like snippets of greater secrets and conspiracies that only ought to be picked up by someone, anyone, and held tight to the greater advantage of any pursuit.

"... I caught them right in the act. Didn't have the heart to tell her spouse…"

"... No, he died a while ago. They said he just dropped dead right then and there…"

"... But what about all the money?!"

"... I remember he had a sibling, but let's not speak of that…"

"... I've purchased her at least twice now…"

"... No, we've had no luck yet. Good avoces are so hard to find…"

"Would you like to dance?" An amused voice asked and tore her away from the quiet observations. It continued a beat later "It's rather lonely on the sidelines."

Virgilia noticed the hand first. Smooth, darker than her own, and carrying two golden rings. One on its index finger and the latter on the pinky. Extended, there was arm hair, albeit hidden away from the dark suit that sparkled as if glistening with a hundred diamonds at once.

"Mr. Flickerman." She smiled.

"Oh, please, I'm Caesar to everyone in this room. Everyone in the nation, actually. We are all on a first name basis," he said, grinning so widely that she worried about his aching cheeks. But it was a kind smile and a kind hand, none that dared to whisk her away as soon as she agreed—or even before she could agree—and he patiently waited for an answer.

"A dance sounds … nice," Virgilia finally answered.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

His hands were as smooth as they looked. They slipped with ease into hers, moving around and holding her steady as he led her through the room.

The interviews had been a mere two weeks ago, but Virgilia remembered them all too well. How he had cheered for every tribute. How he had talked with the girl from District Three about her older sibling who had died in the Games. Caesar had wished her good luck and had squeezed her hand tight. The girl from District Six had been close to weeping on stage but Caesar distracted her by asking about her family's heirloom she had taken as a token. He had hugged her and had kissed her hand before she left. The boy from District Eleven had proudly followed up on Caesar's question about the girl he liked from back home. Caesar had raised his hand up high as the crowd cheered on.

And now Caesar's hand was in hers and Virgilia wondered whether it felt odd to him holding anyone's hand after he had touched those destined to die. If it weren't for the smoothness and warmth, both oddly comforting, she might have had to let go.

"It's a pleasant surprise to see you here," he said. The irony thickly entangled with his statement and bolstered by the grin. He turned to face her. One hand moved up and stopped short between her shoulder blades. His hand rested a few inches higher than Virgilia was used to from any dance partner.

It was a joke, that much she could guess. But her cheeks still felt warmer. "You—you mean here? Everyone's … everyone's just stumbled into… my living room, really," she tried to speak. Pushing herself to joke along, Virgilia felt as if the punch line was entirely amiss and yet he patiently swayed along, entirely out of rhythm, waiting for her to finish. "I really only… I came downstairs and… there you all were… impossible to miss."

Her laugh was awkward.

His chuckle was not.

No, it carried its own magic along. It lifted her shoulders a bit, made her hand on his suit feel more comfortable. They were not at all the same. Caesar so easily entertained an audience, while Virgilia ranked public speeches among her worst scenarios imaginable. Yet, here and there, his chuckle made them seem almost even. Was that how the tributes felt around him?

His foot took a wrong turn, seemingly ignoring the beat of the music, and he lifted his arm for her to twirl.

Virgilia 'oh'ed and turned below his lifted hand. This time, her laugh was not awkward. No, it lightened her heart, and she felt the drinks easing the worry about anyone all too bothered about the volume of her laugh or the consistency of her replies or the accuracy of her steps.

"This was the first year I really watched," she confessed. If her hands weren't on his shoulder or in his hand, she might have regretted those words too much and apologised. But it was difficult in between the music and his steps, neither fitting the other, truly, and yet entertaining together.

"Really? I hope it weren't my interviews that bored you too much to give it a try." Caesar looked playfully offended.

"No." Her gaze wandered away from his too-white smile and over his shoulder. The room was filled with bright red and neon yellow. Its costumes were too big and too bold, but she found a dot of black to focus on. "You were great. As every year, I'm sure."

"Did you enjoy the Games this year round?" His smile had fainted. Yet, Virgilia looked past him. The smile was there, at the edge of her vision, present but not truly so.

"They were … interesting and—and sad, sometimes. Sometimes scary, too, and hopeful and … Finnick's a good victor, isn't he? Everyone seems excited about him."

"Youngest ever, yes."

"Do you think they live a good life? The victors, I mean. Once they are back home."

"They swim in money, Mrs. Virgilia. Enough to feed their family until they die. They get to see the glory of the Capitol up close once per year. Get to follow their interests for the rest of the time. Sounds like a bargain, no?"

His voice had become sickeningly sweet. As if she had eaten too many bonbons at once and her mouth was filled with sugar. It didn't seem right, it seemed too perfect and, somehow, it didn't feel like the truth.

"I enjoy every conversation I have," Caesar said "but I mostly enjoy those that look at me."

"Sorry," she made an effort to focus on him. His green eyebrows. The coffee brown eyes. The high cheekbones. The dark lips.

"Oh, I am not asking for an apology." He swayed them around and her black dot disappeared from her view. "I was mostly wondering what was the source of your distraction."

Her mind spun with explanations, reasons for why she had looked away in the first place, but while her mind jumbled with the right ideas and right words, Caesar had started his guessing game.

And he was spot on.

"If you liked Finnick that much, there's one man who would be thrilled to receive another compliment tonight." He raised a brow of his. "Maybe he can even tell you more about the Games. How he created the arena…"

"Who?" She asked, knowing fully well who could tell her more about the arena creation; who had already told her more about the arena creation.

"Head Gamemaker Heavensbee over there. I must introduce you two. You will be delighted, I promise."

Caesar left behind a cold spot on her back. His other hand remained, smooth and warm, and it was as if her rapid heartbeat had been translated into it, carrying her through the room with an effortless momentum that had its own dance rhythm.

He did not stop before the group that surrounded Plutarch. Instead, Caesar dove right in, their hands an anchor, and he took her with him underneath the surface that she would not have dipped inside.

"Heavensbee." Right there, within the circle, his hand released from hers. There was a brief hug and Caesar's hand on Plutarch's arm. A matter of seconds, but every attention that had hung on Plutarch's lips dissolved. She didn't know how or why. It might have been Caesar himself. Or it was the way he turned Plutarch with a mere hand gesture. Whatever it was, they had separated from the others and her cheeks felt awfully hot when Plutarch blinked at her.

"I've got to introduce you to someone. Maybe you've seen her before, but this is Virgilia Snow. Stunning, I know, the world's so small," Caesar said, every word inciting as he grinned along.

Plutarch shot Caesar a look. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, his features were far too static to understand. Whatever it was, it did not stop Caesar from grinning—nor from continuing to speak.

"I've interrupted our dance to introduce you two. You reckon you can take up my place? Besides, I've caught sight of a new round of finger food and we all know how it is."

Demonstratively, Caesar put a hand on his flat belly.

Plutarch cleared his throat. His blue eyes, dipped into a lovely warmth from the light tonight, looked toward her. "Do you want to dance?"

Without skipping a beat, and gleaming too much, Virgilia nodded. "I would love to."

They walked in unison. In the way of both hitting their steps at the right time, moving at the same speed and continuing their pattern through the room. He didn't hold her hand until they reached the wooden floor.

Plutarch's gaze had fallen downward between them. She could sense the motion of his hands, the air that changed around them and the friction that its movement created. Like the breeze of a summer's evening, its warm air hurrying through hair and across skin. It left a sweet shudder behind, the same way that he hesitated taking her hand.

Virgilia closed the gap between them, took their hands and raised both up.

It took everything not to falter before him. When his hand slipped into hers. When their fingers slipped in between the others. It was odd, at first. The edge of two seasons. The time of the year when the weather could change any time. When the sun couldn't decide between being seen or not. When the temperature left her guessing. But it was a breath of fresh air, something new, something akin to the beauty of nature. Plutarch was like the imperfect flowers that were worth preserving—genuine, real. Her fingers folded and touched the edge of his freckles. The touch was truthful—not like the books where all needed to be perfect. Not like the books that had disappointed her.

His other hand came to rest on her back, lower than Caesar's yet less certain of itself. She could count each of his faint five fingers resting on her back as if the joy they caused in her heart could disappear at any moment. But the hand stayed and its warmth spread above and below. It was not bound to his touch even if it was the cause. There was fizz in her stomach and a dizziness in her head all from his mere touch.

"Are you … having a pleasant evening?" She asked.

"I am." There was a newfound intensity in his gaze as he looked at her. "It's a lot, but there's quiet moments."

"Like now?"

She caught the slip. Where the corners of his lips tilted upward and the familiar line of his cheeks casted light and shadow.

"Like now," he answered.

They moved together. The interplay of wind and leaves, floating along to their own tunes, as if the spring was moving into summer. Their hands held tightly together, leading through the room in a mutual rhythm. There were touches in more ways than that. When their bodies came closer. Leaves entangled. Her arms bumping into his own. His belly brushing against her own. They fit together and the wind blew through chimes, creating its own sound so entirely theirs.

But she was too impatient for the beautiful music and its granted quietness for him. Two weeks of no communication between them that Virgilia had already lived through. Her lips burning on a warm summer's day with questions and thoughts all meant for him and him alone.

He must have noticed something when his view lifted from her chin to her lips to her eyes. He cleared his throat. "Sorry for earlier. Caesar can be intense."

"Is he your friend?" She asked, her chest heightened and shoulders stretched. It didn't make for better hearing him—their words destined for them alone as the music and outside conversations busied themselves. But it might, and that was all that mattered.

"Something like that." His lips thinned into a straight line and brows raised in a nod.

"You see," she spoke with a dry mouth. His hands had readjusted, fingers moved on her back and left a trace of pleasance in their wake. The goosebumps were all over. "He was quite—really helpful in finding you. You have gathered a crowd—haven't you?"

His view lifted to the people around them and moved about. Stopping only briefly for seeming details. "A crowd, yes. You might say that."

"I hope I am a—a good replacement," Virgilia said.

His gaze fell back on her. Seemingly, he had stopped to see more within her and Virgilia wasn't at all sure if there was enough to satisfy his curiosity. Plutarch—he must, she decided—could capture too much all in one gaze. Drawings, arenas, Virgilias. She had appreciated the former and middle, but hated the latter.

His cheeks lifted. "A better one, Jil."

Jil.

Jil.

She had went from Mrs. Snow to Virgilia to Jil. If it had made her heart skip a beat when he had called her Virgilia, it must have been fluttering free from her opened lips.

The only means of easing her aching chest was to imagine the horrors if the softness of his tone had been picked up, but her mind could not focus on anything concrete. It spun around the way his lips had shaped her new name with ease. The tongue that had been so used to the word's composition. He had crossed another boundary. Another one of the plenty they had moved beyond.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't—"

No, don't!

"I liked it," Virgilia quickly interfered. She looked at him. The faint freckles stretching over his face to his neck and ears. The way his eyes focused on her, entirely her, and yet wasn't harsh. The mouth that remained ajar as if to say something, but left her room to think and to speak. "I … quite enjoy your version."

His lips moved back together and into a smile.

Their silence was pleasant. It was giving room to focus on his touch, on the way their feet moved together, and on the way he felt by her side. This was not the discomfort at breakfast tables or the silence during rose garden walks. There was space to think without force, space to reconsider conversation and contemplate on questions she had burned to ask him.

One of them slipped from her lips at the shift from one song to the next. "This year's gears… they were right for him, weren't they?"

His orange brows pulled closer together. They casted a shadow over his eyes, yet the blue remained visible.

A beat later, he nodded. "They must have been."

"He, Finnick, fits a lot of what I said."

"Did he?" Plutarch's voice pitched higher. Virgilia looked at him and saw the grin first. Its lips lacked the sweetness from earlier and the disbelief that his question would have held. Innocence had been wiped away from it. He remembered. Yet, there was no viciousness, no manipulation. The games had not been altered to fit her perception.

She simply had been correct in her prediction. And he simply remembered. He hadn't forgotten, hadn't half-heartedly listened.

"I might need to hire you for next year," Plutarch said in an attempt at a joke.

Virgilia smiled, but it sank back too soon and buried underneath a strained line between her eyebrows. The Games were a difficult subject, that much she had noticed. In the same manner that her marriage was or loyalty to the President or happiness in the Capitol. Some topics in life were not meant to be addressed in earnest, ever, and yet another topic lengthened the list.

This time, the silence between them didn't sit right. Their steps continued at the same pace, their hands still fit together, their bodies softly brushed into each other. Yet, her lips had sealed to a different reality. One where she sat quietly at the table, meant to be looked at rather than spoken to. Tension within—the nice spring-to-summer clouds had tightened together, greyed and roared.

Plutarch looked at her oddly.

"I don't know—know if I quite like them … enough."

The confession that had slipped away. A misstep. A wrongdoing. A thought misplaced. It wasn't meant to exist, but somehow, inevitably, it had to slip before him rather than anyone else.

"What isn't there to like?" His voice was thick with irony as if its vocal cords had been replaced. An unspoken act between them had settled, and there was no concern or shock.

Virgilia knew it in the comfort of his eyes. The lights hit them without a brush of shadow cast upon. There was life within them. They were entirely unlike the eyes from the District 10 girl. There was secrecy in them, they seemed lighter when he smiled and they had looked at her with a newfound passion when her new name had slipped past his lips. While all of Panem, including Virgilia, had watched Finnick's final conversation with his last opponent in silence, his eyes had known a different angle. There must have been sound that accompanied his view. Sound that, she knew, had made him one of the sole witnesses to that conversation.

Trusts wore thin here. It sank as fast as it had come. Where her heart burst against its walls, the room around them had grown too small for her liking. Easier. She had to settle for easier. "Isn't it a privilege, almost?"

His head tilted, but there were no words.

"I meant—we can … ignore this. We can look away from… the bad, but it's still—" there.

Feelings of comfort replaced those of worry. A warning system, knowledge to stop short of concluding such thoughts before they took over and changed her. She bit into the inner flesh of her mouth, waited for his response and hoped—ached that whatever she said did not cross the threshold they all held onto.

"That's quite insightful," he said. It was a rumble, but she was not sure what for. Rumbles of thunder and destruction or the soft rumble of summer turning into autumn. "Are you still enjoying your book?"

Virgilia held onto the line of rescue he had offered. Few stutters in-between, she told him of the story of Persephone and Hades. How the woman had been abducted to live in the underworld. How she lived in hell by the side of someone who had taken her away, yet taken her from unkind people. A dichotomy, it seemed, unless Persephone became an active player. No more subject of mother or husband. Free, in hell, but free.

The modern seasons, he explained. The tale of spring-to-summer and autumn-to-winter. It was the death and rebirth of the world.

Such interpretations seemed stoic. There was too much unsaid as they danced along. Did Persephone find her own path? Did she love the man who brought her there or did she play by her own rules? How kind was hell and how kind could an abduction be? Was she a victim or a heroic figure? The story seemed to spin within Virgilia's mind.

"It seems you are close to finishing the book," he said in observation and smiled.

"There's still some chapters, it's … it's —" She can re-read, she's always done that. But that doesn't pass her lips, no, it's stuck on the tip of her tongue.

"I've got some books you might like," Plutarch said as if it didn't mean all that much.

"Really?" Virgilia asked as if it meant the world.

"If you want, you can borrow some of mine."

He promised to look around and bring some next time. The next time remained stuck with her; was it not a promise of continuation between them? It stuck to her in the same way his ghostly touch—on her back and in her hand and in the ways they bumped into each other—stuck to her even as the music had worn off, the guests had left, and the lights had been turned off.

And she thought to Persephone. Had she become the hero of her own story?

A/N: I've commissioned another art piece. It's linked in the AO3 story once more :) Sorry that it's such a difficulty on FFN.