oOo
There's a body.
Well.
There's part of a body.
One of Katniss's arms and both of her legs are gone, leaving behind mauled stumps. The last limb is covered in scratches. Half of her hair is pulled out, and there are teeth marks across her face and chest. One of her eyes is missing. Her neck is torn out.
Violet finds herself cataloging the injuries with the dispassionate gaze of a healer.
Because if she thinks as a mother, she'll shatter.
One of the Peacekeepers who brought the body looks at the room - at Peeta clutching the knife he was using to slice bread for their supper, at Haymitch sitting by the chess set with forced nonchalance, at Prim sobbing in her mother's arms - and says, "She shouldn't have gone beyond the fence." And then he and his partner leave.
Violet knows what she has to do. From the looks on their faces, neither of the men can handle it, and her daughter, innocent thirteen-year-old Prim who's somehow kept her heart despite everything, definitely can't. She leads Prim to the kitchen, takes Peeta's knife, and hands him her remaining daughter. Instinctively, he hugs the girl, letting her sob into his shoulder instead of her mother's. Haymitch stumbles over to join them. He grabs a bottle of white liquor and doesn't even pick up a cup, just drinks straight from the bottle.
Part of her wants to break, the way she did when Solomon died. But she's older now, more numb, and she's been mentally preparing for this since Katniss volunteered. If she breaks, Prim will too, and she can't allow that to happen.
Instead she gently gathers the body and carries it upstairs to prepare it for burial.
As Violet washes the body and sews the wounds she can, she thinks through what has to happen. There will be a funeral - and will she have any say in it, or will it be dictated by the Capitol just as Katniss's wedding would have been?
The crate of wedding dresses is still waiting for Katniss to try them on. Violet bites her lip and pushes the tears back.
After the funeral, she and Prim will have to return to their old house. She's sure it will need to be cleaned, and they'll have to bring all their things back. The furniture's there - they've been using the Capitol-provided things - but the list of other things is long. Bedding, clothing, food, personal items...
At least they've been stashing money away, Katniss's stipend as a Victor, and Violet should be able to keep that… especially if the Capitol doesn't know she has it. Thankfully, most of it's hidden sewn inside their old bedding or clothes. The safest places she could think of. Old habits die hard in Twelve.
They'd best start packing soon to make sure they get it all, as well as anything of Katniss's they want to keep. Surely the rest will be turned into some Capitol parody of a memorial.
And then… then she'll go back to healing and pray that Prim isn't Reaped. It isn't likely. In all the Games she's watched, someone who was spared from the Arena by a volunteer has never been called again. Of course, there's no guarantee. Prim's name will be in that bowl. Twice this year, more next.
But it isn't likely. Which is good.
Because she knows in every inch of her being that if Prim is Reaped, her daughter will never make it out of the Arena.
And if Prim doesn't survive, neither will Violet.
oOo
Snow is smart, Haymitch has to admit.
Kill their figurehead - but don't make her a martyr.
"What a terrible tragedy," the man says in a grand speech, falsehood oozing from every pore, "that Katniss Everdeen should be so thoughtless and thrill-seeking as to go beyond the fence and into that dangerous wilderness, when she had every advantage the Capitol could provide. We will have to increase Peacekeeper patrols and make certain each district's border is fully secure." He presses a hand to his heart… or where a heart would be, if he had one. "We wouldn't want to lose more citizens to the monsters that live beyond our borders, would we?"
The Capitol eats the message up, mourning the girl they lost in the way only the Capitol can. Within weeks, they've produced three movies, a radio drama, six books, and a television serial about the dangers beyond the fence. One movie is even a (very badly done) biopic of Katniss's life, with an extremely clean and healthy District Twelve and two people who look about thirty playing Katniss and Peeta. Katniss is presented as foolish, thoughtless, a thrill-seeker. All things she wasn't… but a safe view of her for the Capitol's consumption.
The districts don't accept the message immediately, but they're confused and dispirited, unsure which way to go. There are small rebellions, but they are quickly squashed. The momentum sputters and dies.
And Thirteen…
Thirteen cancels the revolution.
The day Plutarch tells him, Haymitch punches a wall and gets drunk.
Drunker, really. He hasn't stopped being drunk since Katniss died. No. Since Katniss was murdered. Oh, no one will ever admit it, but he knows the signs. It's a 'tragic death,' just like his family. And just as natural.
Yeah. Snow is very smart. When the Quell card is read, it announces that, as a reminder to the rebels that even those who depend on the Capitol least must still look to it for everything, the tributes for the 75th Games will only be Reaped from those who have never taken tesserae, and that no one can sign up for tesserae from this moment until the day after the Reaping.
It turns Twelve against itself, the merchants angry at the Seam, the Seam gloating back at the merchants. "Let them see what it's like," he hears over and over, as though the merchants never had anyone Reaped before. For fuck's sake, Peeta went just last year, and Haymitch will never forget Maysilee. And they're not the only ones. He's shepherded forty-six kids to their deaths, and five of them were merchants.
Haymitch knows it will be the same in the other districts, classes turning against each other, blame and gloating in the air. Snow has managed to distract them all from who the real enemy is.
The Games will continue. Panem will continue.
It makes Haymitch feel sick.
There are no standouts in these Games. The Career Districts, where everyone takes tesserae, send young twelve-year-olds - children who weren't allowed to sign up for tesserae in the two months between the reading of the card and the Reaping. Most of the other tributes are from better classes, children of merchants or whoever's the best off in those districts.
Unsurprisingly, Twelve's tributes are both merchants, the eldest daughter of the shoemaker and the youngest son of the greengrocer. Neither makes it out of the bloodbath. Peeta tries to get sponsors for the girl - apparently they're friends - but she can't swim, and the Arena is full of water.
Less than one hour after the Games begin, Delly and Robby are both dead. So are thirteen other tributes, victims of a failure to swim or those who reached that deadly pile of weapons - all that was at the Cornucopia - first.
Haymitch sees the change in Peeta, the way the boy's hands shake as he sits at the console in Mentor Central and stares at the screen where the girl's death aired. It sucks that his first tribute to die was a friend. But at least he'll get that lesson out of the way now: don't get attached. After all, Haymitch learned the same lesson his first year mentoring, when two of his classmates died within minutes of the starting gong.
But it gets worse. There's a messenger waiting for Peeta, now that both of their tributes are out, and with a rising feeling of nausea Haymitch knows exactly what it is that Snow wants. Without Katniss and the shield of being one of the Star-Crossed Lovers, Peeta's available for Snow to whore out. Even with a missing leg, there will be buyers. The boy is too attractive, too kind, too innocent. He'll sell well.
Haymitch can't help him. He dumps the whole mess in Finnick's lap and goes on a drinking spree.
He never comes out of the bottle.
By the time the 76th Games roll around, District Twelve - once again - has only one living Victor.
oOo
Gale has never been one to just give up.
It sucks that Katniss is dead. It sucks hard. He's never going to stop missing her - his hunting partner, his best friend, and the girl he loves. Loved. She's still in his heart enough that he can't marry someone else, not yet. Maybe someday, but not now.
Especially since he's not giving up on getting rid of the Capitol.
Besides, now that the electricity on the fence works all the time, and he can't escape to the woods to hunt or trap or take time for himself, he has to direct his energy somewhere.
It starts with whispers, passed as Twelve's miners work deep underground to eke coal out of the earth. Whispers of rebellion. Even concrete plans. Yeah, the dynamite is kept under lock and key, but everyone knows where it is. Surely they could break in, get some, and attack the Peacekeepers. Or the Justice Building. Maybe the train depot which leads to the Capitol. Gale's not picky.
Plans are passed along; workers start to think about rebellion as a foregone conclusion rather than just a possibility. Katniss is remembered.
They don't keep it quiet enough.
Whispers travel, and whispers of rebellion are no exception.
Just a few days after the Victory Tour for the 77th Games - won by a beautiful but deadly eighteen-year-old from One - there's a mine explosion exactly where the whispers of rebellion began.
Somehow Gale isn't surprised to die in exactly the same way as his father.
After all, his father was also a revolutionary.
oOo
Cinna's sketchbook is full of designs. Everything from dresses to costumes to Hunger Games uniforms. There are bodies of all shapes and sizes and colorings.
But the undisputed star remains Katniss Everdeen.
Katniss Everdeen dressed for the tribute parade, Katniss Everdeen in flowing gowns, Katniss Everdeen in what he imagines her typical Twelve clothes look like.
Katniss Everdeen dressed as a mockingjay.
He runs his fingers over the drawing, tracing the lines. He never got to make that outfit for her. Or for anyone. The girl on fire has been extinguished, and the spark has died with her. The Games are back to what they once were: a parade of doomed children who reach into their own depths in order to survive. There are no heroes here.
He and Portia are sticking with Twelve. Peeta Mellark needs all the help he can get. Without someone to help, Cinna's pretty sure Peeta will eventually turn into someone like Haymitch - alone, no connections, nothing left but the alcohol and a bunch of dead kids. Cinna may or may not be able to help, but he's going to try. And trying means sticking with Twelve.
The truth is, the way Cinna sees it going, Twelve isn't likely to have another Victor for a very long time. The Games will continue, with Victors from various districts, but unless something extraordinary happens, none will be that spark.
But that doesn't mean he's going to stop drawing. One day, he's sure, there will be a need for that mockingjay dress - or suit. And when there is, he'll be ready.
oOo
Madge is barely nineteen when her father dies.
Sure, it appears to be natural causes. A heart attack isn't surprising for a middle-aged man from Twelve, right?
But she knows better. Her father - like her, like her mother, like the aunt she never met - was not an obedient servant of the Capitol. And he didn't do a good enough job quashing Twelve's budding rebellion.
Like so much in Panem, Mayor is a hereditary position, and so at nineteen years old and only six weeks past her last Reaping, Madge finds herself juggling all of the problems which come with leading a district like Twelve - meeting quotas, dealing with starvation and disease, standing as the bridge between the Capitol and her district. It's a tricky balancing act, especially for someone as inexperienced as she is.
Less than a year later, her mother finally dies, passing from the world in a morphling-induced haze. It leaves Madge truly alone.
She never feels it more than when the mine explodes, and she's left with a hint that it wasn't natural and strict instructions never to ask questions or tell anyone else what she knows. She presents the families of the dead miners with medals and their one month's pay and sees Katniss in every face.
Twelve has survived worse. Twelve will survive worse.
And Madge Undersee will be alone for all of it.
Oddly, the person she most relates to is Peeta. He, too, is a loner in Twelve, their sole Victor, living by himself in that house up on the hill. Primrose Everdeen still stops by to help him sometimes, but he keeps her at arm's length. His family has long since stopped trying; he pushed them away years ago.
He tries to do the same to Madge, but she'll only let him avoid her so much. After all, neither of them has anyone else, and who else can understand the precarious position the Capitol puts them in? So she insists on joining him for dinner at least once a week, and while he doesn't encourage it, he allows it.
During the Victory Tour for the 79th Hunger Games - won by a girl from Nine - there's the usual meet-and-greet and speeches and dinner, which Madge hosts. Prairy Jackson is shy, sweet, and, based on some things Peeta's hinted at, the Capitol will eat her alive. That poor child, Madge thinks before remembering the girl is only six years younger than her.
They see her off in the morning, and the forced crowds disappear until it's just the two of them, staring into the far distance at the swiftly-departing train, no more than a speck of light on the horizon. The silence is comfortable, like the nights Madge has dinner at his house.
Peeta surprisingly breaks it. "Poor kid," he says. "Sometimes I think the ones who die are the lucky ones."
Madge has had the same thought.
He lets out a harsh laugh, nothing like the sunny giggle he had when they were kids. "Just as well it's going to be years before Twelve even has a chance at winning, isn't it?"
She frowns. "What do you mean?"
"We're rebels. Punishment lasts a long time in the Capitol."
"The Games are rigged?" She can't say she's surprised. Oh, she doesn't think they're entirely rigged. But they can't be entirely unrigged either. Children of Victors are Reaped too often for chance, there's always at least one or two twelve-year-olds from non-Career Districts, and when the tributes won't fight something always happens to make sure they do.
"Not completely. But I know a few Gamemakers. Twelve's not allowed to win for now. Probably until another district angers Snow more. Or when Katniss isn't a symbol anymore." He shrugs as if it means nothing.
"Snow's getting older," Madge points out. She sees it sometimes, in the dispatches he sends the Mayors. Oh, he fakes it well, but his hands shake more than they used to, and he pauses more often to cough up blood. She doesn't think he's dying, but she knows he's aging. Even the Capitol can only hold it off so long.
"What makes you think the next president will be any different?" Peeta shakes his head. "No. That's the lesson, Madge. The Capitol always wins."
She thinks about that. Part of her knows he's right. But the rest of her… "That doesn't mean we stop fighting."
He gives her a half-smile. "I hope that works out for you."
Yeah, she thinks when he turns and trudges back toward town, me too.
oOo