Far off the main traffic and hidden from random eyes by half-destroyed buildings, the place seemed eerily peaceful. Lying around the makeshift burial site he saw shovels and pickaxes, carelessly strewn out as if the work was to be continued any minute. Which very likely was exactly what had happened in the days before, executions going on until the very last moment. When the Capitol fell, it shared a common goal with Coin: to drag down and kill as many as they could. The survivors would never know exactly how many people had been killed in the war, or where they had been buried. There must be dozens of mass graves like the one in front of him, with bodies thrown one on top of the other, a pile of corpses under a pile of soil. People whose names were as lost as their lives, their histories untold, their faces forgotten. Victims of a war most of them had never understood.

It was quiet expect for the birds flying around the courtyard, throwing long shadows in the sunset's orange glow, creating a striking contrast against the hard shapes of broken glass and pieces of concrete. A perfect spot for the Cornucopia.
Plutarch shook his head, silently reprimanding himself. There were no games anymore. Commander Paylor and her hastily put-together team of the districts' spokespeople had seen to that.
Fortunately, president Coin hadn't got to announce the return of the Hunger Games before the arrow hit her. The memory made Plutarch chuckle. He wasn't easily surprised – it was his job to anticipate every possible outcome, every angle and aspect of his potential allies and enemies. It had taken him about two weeks to understand Coin's hunger for power and her plan to secure it. She hadn't been much different from Snow, in the end. A paranoid psychopath unable to look beyond his own needs – the good thing about it being that there were lists and protocols of every execution, every kill enforced by the Capitol. Fulvia had looked through the files and quickly come up with a date and place. He had managed to avoid going there for two weeks, but now there was no more excuse.
Panem was at peace. People returned to their old districts, forging new connections on their way. It was a new world. Probably not the world they'd dreamed of, but it was definitely better than before.
Except for the people missing in it.

"Sorry it took me so long, Cinna. Things got ugly down here. Really ugly."
Like everyone, Plutarch had been appalled by the attack on the children – horrified somewhere deep in his soul; it was this shared feeling of terror more than anything else that made rebels and peacekeepers both drop their weapons and agree to a ceasefire – but when he thought of it, it was a strategically understandable move.
Katniss sparing Snow to kill Coin, though – nobody hadn't seen that one coming, including him. After all that girl had suffered, and never having exactly been mentally stable, Plutarch would not in a million years have expected her to look beyond the rebellion and towards the future.

I told you to trust her, old man.
The voice was both memory and imagination, rippling through his mind.
"You're calling me old?" Plutarch laughed and quickly stopped as his voice echoed through the ruins, startling the birds. The last thing he needed now was for someone to see him talking to the dead. He caught suspicious glances even now, his role as Head Gamemaster far from forgotten. No matter the role he'd played to build a new world, he would always be associated with the old one. But at least he was alive to see it.
"Last time I checked, I was looking way better than you, my friend."
Plutarch had forced himself to watch the footage of Cinna's torture, the nightly interrogations, finally his friend's slow and painful execution. It was worse than he'd thought.
"Did you think it would be like that? Couldn't you… you could have sent for me, you know? I would have found someone to end it painless."
Of course, Snow couldn't let Cinna live – Plutarch hadn't known exactly what his friend was planning but when he saw Katniss' dress at the interview, he realized his friend had chosen his fate. Everything meaningful came with a prize – the question was what one was willing to give and to lose. Only now Plutarch realized that Cinna had defined his limits long ago.

"…and then, game over." Plutarch chuckled and lifted his glass, then stopped mid-air as he saw his friend's grimacing. "What's bothering you now?"
"Apart from the fact that you're drunk again when it's not even dark?" Cinna retorted, then shook his head. "Forgive me."
"It's alright. I know you've got that caring instinct. You'll make a great dad one day." He was drunk, Plutarch realized, or he wouldn't say things like that. Talking about the future in such detail was stupid, especially with the revolution coming up. Of course, people fought better when they had the perspective of being happy. But for many of them, the revolution would be the end, and even if they survived – nobody could predict what Panem would become. They had argued about it more than once, and Plutarch by now had sketched down some possible outcomes and how to deal with them.
Not that surprising, it had turned out that Cinna believed in a much brighter future than Plutarch ever could. Much as he hoped for the stylist to be right, he doubted it. And while he could deal with brutality and retaliation – for that was what the district people would want, surely – he worried how the reality of war would affect Cinna.
"It will be bloody", Plutarch started, at the same moment as Cinna said, "I still wish we could find a way to unite the people peacefully."
"Peacefully?" Plutarch cried. "Look at what we've done to the people, Cinna. There's no reason for them to keep the peace. And that fact is the only thing that'll make this revolution happen."
Cinna shook his head. "You know if this is only about revenge, I want no part of it. And Katniss won't, either."
"It's not only about revenge", Plutarch explained patiently, "but also. I know that for Katniss it will be about protecting her family. It'll be about that for many of them. But that doesn't mean it'll go without bloodshed. It can't, Cinna. If we want to change things – to destroy Snow, to make sure the Hunger Games and all this injustice will never come again – then we will have to fight with more than words and symbols. We have no choice. It'll be kill or be killed."
Cinna closed his eyes, and Plutarch softly placed a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. I'll do my best to keep you out of the mess."
Cinna smiled thinly as he put his hand above Plutarch's. "Kill or be killed, huh?"
"I'm afraid, yes."
"Sounds like a choice to me."

Plutarch had hoped that if he wasn't be able to save Cinna, at least the execution would be quick.
He should have known better. His friend hadn't only openly supported the revolution, he had designed it. It was he who had given Katniss wings and fire, and she had soared and engulfed all of Panem – through Cinna's passion, his knowledge, his love for detail that was palpable in every inch of the mockingjay. Sometimes Plutarch couldn't even bring himself to look at the girl in her costume. The symbol of a future his best friend had sacrificed his life for.
Up to this moment Plutarch didn't know how she'd come to kill not the fallen, but the rising dictator. The mockingjay had finally found her own song to sing, and her meltdown might have saved more people than her fire had consumed.

"It seems you were right about our mockingjay."
Of course I was. I never lost a bet in my whole life.
"Oh, shut up." Plutarch took a deep breath, wondering what he was doing here besides getting mad.
"Tell me one thing, Cinna. Was it worth it?"
This time, the voice inside his head was quiet.
Plutarch shook his head in frustration. "So what now?"
But he knew the answer to that before his memory brought it up: now it was time to trust people to do better, to rule themselves in a peaceful way. It was the greatest risk he'd ever had to take.
"I really wish you'd be here with me, old friend", he murmured. "You'd like this new world."
You will, too. And you should know by now that I'm always with you. Let the past go. Your moving forward doesn't hurt us who stay behind.
"Nicely said, you philosopher. But moving forward without you hurts me." Plutarch let his gaze follow one of the birds... and quickly looked away when he recognized it.
He was sick of mockingjays. He was sick of Cinna's voice in his head, and at the same time he dreaded the thought of losing it, because it was all that was left of him.
"I should have found a way to save you. I…" He broke off to fight back the tears that threatened to choke him.
"I just wanted to say… I'm sorry."