Tigris had a feeling he had been watching her.

It had been around nightfall when the glowing advertisements and street lights replaced the sun. Right there, she had noticed him in the corner of her vision. Standing in the same spot as before, the flickering lights of a shop window crept up behind him. They illuminated his frame and cast a shadow crawling from the street up to her doorstep. He had waited for her—and he hadn't moved an inch since she noticed him.

Not that they had talked. No, she didn't need to ask to know he was waiting for her. Same as he had stood in the same spot last time—and had happened to leave a few minutes after Tigris had turned all remaining lights off.

Back then, he had observed her dark window. Back then, she had the courage to stare in return. Tonight, she had left the lights on.

For a moment her hand had hovered above the switch. It had been the easy way out, that much she knew. In truth, Tigris didn't know what had moved her to not just flip it, go into a backroom, light a candle and work underneath the yellow glimmer.

The backroom part was true. She had rushed here right away. Fallen to her knees, tugging her legs close to her chin, and holding her breath. Between desperate gasps, Tigris watched for the main room's light. Had he taken her leave as an invitation? Would the shop's door bell ring?

The main room's light cast through the narrow slit between the dark backroom and the vast store. Waiting for a flicker or an interruption of the light source, she listened for the bell or the creaking of the hardwood floor.

Seconds turned into minutes and—nothing? No long shadows that had followed her, no deep voice that called her name.

Sharp teeth gnawed at her lips. She had expected him to intrude right away. Instead, he was likely still outside, staring— waiting . Running her nails across the nearest box—cardboard edges nibbled at by mice—it had seemed that he was more patient than that. What kind of cat-and-mouse game was he playing?

It had been there, on the left edge of the light ray. One box smelling like moths and dust labelled in a black pen. Scooched closer, Tigris pulled it out from underneath. The cardboard screeched when opening it.

Her heart sank.

Only one item had fit inside. The fur came in dark waves, fit around the waist and a loose petticoat. Intercepted by white pelage—a different kind, though she wasn't sure what—the arms and collar stood high in contrast.

A long time ago, the coat smelled like her mother. It had been a comforting smell, wrapped all around her shoulders as the ceiling had shook and the sirens blared. There wasn't much they had been able to keep back then. During the war, most was lost. What wasn't lost was sold in the aftermath.

But her mother's coat had always been this one memory. It had survived against difficult times only to wound up in a cardboard box she hadn't touched in ages. Shame flushed her cheeks deep red, and Tigris wrapped the black fur around her. Just like old times, except she used to disappear in it entirely—top of her head down to her toes with plenty of space to spare. Today, the light edges did not even reach her shins.

Today, her mother was only a ghostly memory. Faintly, Tigris could remember her. A tall woman with her hair coming down in waves. She had worn this coat, spinning in a mirror as music danced from a radio. All while the war had gnawed down her cheeks, but Tigris remembered her as a beauty. The kind that made heads spin on the street. And maybe it had something to do with that perfume she carried. Her scent had stuck inside the coat. All until it hadn't, until Tigris' nose had grown accustomed to it—or the coat had begun to smell like daughter rather than mother.

None of that had been a small process. It were the little things eroding her memory. Her mother's cheerful laughter. The way her smile stretched. The smell of her perfume. Tigris had tried to grasp onto each. But memory ran through her hands like sand: Holding onto it had become an impossible endeavour. You'd only notice once it was too late—until remembering became a strain in your mind.

Grief struck twice. Once for the person, and once for the memory.

And now, tonight, her mother was merely the soothing touch of a worn out coat. The kind Tigris had pushed away ever since the end of her career.

At least it did help. Enough to get her back on her knees and brush off the dust that she had picked up. The strip of light hadn't changed. No one had snuck up on her.

Back when the bomb alarms had them huddled together in shelters or underneath tables, her legs would grow stiff and her voice strained. They spent hours in tight spaces, and there was nothing that would prepare them for another hit. Sometimes they came in quick succession, and other times the songs they sang in between would reach double digits before another one struck.

She always emerged with the coat around her shoulders, its smell the comfort of the deceased embracing the survivors. Her legs would wobble, not quite unlike now where she struggled to stand upright in the main room again.

Tigris had made a business out of fashion with her shop. Most clothes were mere resales of what once was. People who had handed them here for a few coins in exchange. But some had been her own creation. They didn't sell the same as they used to anymore.

She promptly ignored the faint grasp of the outsider's gaze, walked past a hidden doorway into a snug kitchen serving as a living space and wardrobe all at the same time.

They had only been children back then, and their stomachs ached every time they emerged from the shelter. Granted, their stomachs had ached almost every other time, too. Tigris wasn't sure if her craving now emerged from memory or true hunger. But it was all just the same, no?

That was the thing about children at a war. They were frightened in some moments, and joyful in others. Rubble and its remains made playgrounds, leftover grenades throwing competitions. They had lost friends that way, and many other ways, be it disease, decay, or disaster. But for the most part, it was hunger.

Her storage space was overflowing with canned food. The fridge filled, and Tigris grabbed the remaining part of a raw steak. Matched with bread, she scraped the mould off of the latter and tried her best at pretending the man outside her door did not exist.

Back when she had cooked for more mouths than her own, Tigris had made the effort to fully cook the steak. But it had been the hunger, and then eventually the taste developed for it, that offered comfort in the raw steak. Today, it was all to remind her of the faint feeling of community from the time before . Not that it had been a good time; prices had been high and people gruesome even when the war had ended.

But she had been hopeful—in some ways. The skin around her hands had been reddened, exhausted and broken. It mattered little. There had been a future ahead, a hope, and she had held onto it as if it were as real as her mother's coat.

And in a way, it had worked out, hadn't it? Things seemed to improve drastically around the time District Four scored its first victor. Almost eleven years since the end of the war, the last remaining debris had been shaken off. They could not want for anything; the generosity from the pockets of their newfound friends afforded them full bellies, warm homes, and—to Tigris' everlasting gratitude—designs with her name attached.

If one did not look closely, this counted as paradise.

And Tigris had an eye for detail.

Something within the deepest belly of Panem began to change. It was the rumble of a city recovering from war, of people just like her whose trauma had been sewn into their bodies early. For some, they found relief in revenge.

The Games had always been a violent endeavour. For a while, it had been merely that: Violence for the sake of violence. It grew stale fast; there were only so many times that seeing the life beaten out of someone could have an effect on a war-torn generation. It wore itself thin, and the hunger could no longer be sated.

Tigris scooped up the remaining bread crumbs from her plate when steps sounded from the outside. Her hand whisked across the table, turning as the plate swooped to the edge and caught merely by the tips of her fingers. She had hurled around, heart hammering inside. Its rhythm had taken up the same pattern of the steps, strangling her throat as the shadow grew longer until—

The feline companion stopped by her legs, its tail caressing Tigris as she lifted him up in protesting meows. His spotted coat shimmered in the round pattern of a leopard.

Tsk—Tsk. The noise crawled past her lips, and she cut up a slice of meat for him. Light fingers brushed through his hair. Tigris had picked him up when she had still been a stylist. Some neighbours had a tendency to abandon their pets when trends moved on, and he had been no different. Meowing on the front steps of her door and refusing to eat inside. It had taken coaxing and cooing to convince him that she did not mean any harm.

But Tigris had been a stylist long before feeding strays on her doorstep.

The Games had not always been what they were today. Some elements remained the same, but the starved, damaged Capitol had only so many resources to spare, none of which were caring what the tributes they sent inside looked like. But with a recovering population came a hunger for the beautiful: A hunger for spectacle.

Snow lands on top, Coriolanus Snow had reminded her. He had become the newly announced Gamemaker to the Hunger Games—and the reason for newly implemented changes. In his words, it was for the wellbeing of the tributes. Wouldn't they want to be trained professionally? Wouldn't they feel comfort in fixed clothes and fresh food? You had done the same with Lucy Gray. Hadn't she been happier?

The first years, she had convinced herself it were his coaxing words alone that had moved her over the doorstep. His offer was great: Helping the tributes and gaining acclaim as a designer. But the ugly truth had only revealed itself slowly. No one had forced her across. It had been her decision alone, no matter how tempting the offer or how persuasive his words.

The Games had already gathered a crowd in the Capitol by the time designers became a new element to influence the chariot rides and interviews.

The first year, she had sewn together glowing wires around a dark suit. It had to be tailored last minute as her tribute had been so malnourished they disappeared inside the fabric. Only fourteen years old when they were lifted inside the arena several days later, and only fifty-two minutes later when the body was removed.

The pang of pain came unexpectedly. Tigris had been in her late twenties and had thought little could throw her off anymore. Yet, there had been a glint of recognition between them. The discomfort in a suit, the intrusive gazes of others, or the demand to explain themselves to the world.

There was no happy end.

Not the second year, where she implemented colours into District 3's outfits. This time, her tribute was an older girl with dark brown hair and ashen skin. She had been short for her age, and Tigris cut off good portions of the outfit to avoid tripping and falling during the interviews. She died eleven days in, just before the camera crews would have been sent in the Districts to interview family and friends.

There was no happy end.

Not in the third year either, District 3, twelve years old. Two days. Not in the fourth year, District 9, fifteen years old. Thirty seconds. Not in the fifth year, District 9, seventeen years. Nine days.

There was no happy end.

Tigris had begun to sew clothes for the dead. Her hands had become a stranger to herself, a foreign landscape that extended until dread filled her body. It was torture to return each year all while Coriolanus rose from Gamemaker into politics.

Stopping was impossible. What would it mean to their reputation? She couldn't simply end things now. There were ladders to climb, still. Snow lands on top , and this wasn't their peak. This wasn't the time to consider her feelings—how dare she be so selfish!

The first time ink had punctured her skin, it had just been before District 2 and before Livia. Just around the time that Coriolanus stood the chance to become President. The youngest in Panem's history , the campaign posters read. Renewal for Panem , they continued.

She was awarded District 2. A District whose tributes had an actual shot at victory. Coriolanus proclaimed this was it—the peak they had worked so hard to reach.

It was at her peak that she had sharpened her cheeks and adjusted her ears to look closer to her namesake. Anything to get away from the hollow feeling that carried on her shoulders when looking inside the mirror.

In the same year, the Presidency was supposed to be handed to Coriolanus Snow. Only during that year, it had rained paper. A few times—and then never again.

Tigris jolted up. Her tomcat jumped and rushed to the fridge, but by that time she had already abandoned the room. Rushing past the main floor, the man still standing beneath the lamppost, the long shade fondling the door, reaching for its entrance, and asking to be let inside, she had done her best to pretend he was not here.

But somewhere inside the storage room, pushed between moving boxes of old clothes and cat food, there was something else.

The paper had been folded five times. Its edges were ripped and its colour had yellowed over the past decades.

The first time Tigris had seen the papers, she had been walking around the training centre between sponsors and gamemakers. They had fallen from several floors above, touched by the light as they made their way downward. Radiance illuminated through, and yet shadows cast, it had been a magical dance to watch as the entire room had collapsed in silence. Watching, reaching, they all had been drawn to something from a different world. She, too, had reached out, never minding those who had distributed the papers.

By the end of the first line, her heart had rushed and she had looked around. Most had discarded the papers, feet trampling across as the crowd moved on.

She had folded it fast, over and over, and let the paper slip inside her pockets.

The way back home had been a terrifying ordeal. This was the action of someone having gone rogue. Possibly a political enemy, possibly someone far worse. It had only hit her when she closed the door behind her, sinking down on the heated floor, that she realised the possession of such a paper might become dangerous, too.

Her breath had punctured her chest, heavily falling and rising as she undid the paper and truly read what was written there.

Her cat must have followed. She felt his tail hugging her legs and a soft meow until she knelt down to scratch him. Unfolding the paper in the same rhythm as she had done many years ago, the ink had faded yet remained legible. Almost as if it had the same urgency as it used to.

It had been years since Tigris last read it.

Capitol people revolt: Snow kills!

Snow is a danger to our country, he will kill everyone who stands in his way.

Do not trust him. Rise up against him. Avenge his victims.

The signature had been an all black rose. Her finger hovered above it.

Back then, she had ignored the warning. She had stuffed it aside, without the heart to throw it away. Eradicated the letter from her mind.

In reality, it had been the beginning of something new.

Ignoring the paper had become awfully easy. Tigris went on with her daily life, and pushed aside the lingering feeling that something about them had been right. Coriolanus' career had been a path of destruction, if she decided to look.

And she was terrible at looking away.

Hadn't it started at the Academy? Hadn't Gamemakers that he disliked died without a clear reason? Hadn't the death of President Ravinstill, as old as he was, been a favourable one when Coriolanus had just made it into his inner circle?

Worse, when the perpetrators were captured, imprisoned, and never seen again, Tigris had recognised some of the names as former Academy students in Coriolanus' year. Their names would never come up again. Erased from history, it seemed, and gone like the wind.

For a long while, it was easy losing herself in work. Most tributes still died, but ever so often, whenever Tigris felt her skin itch and the pain became too much, one of them scored a victory. Some other times, her body changed just enough to keep a distance between herself and the corpses left on her path.

The purring sound around her ankles returned her to reality. She stood there, still holding the paper. Decades into his presidency, this might be the only leaflet that remained. Perhaps, same as the people who had written it, all accusations disappeared. Folding it along its lines, Tigris pushed the paper down the pocket of her dress. Keeping it was all she could do to hold onto the truth.

She had the mind to scratch the cat's back, but he led her back into the kitchen. As they walked, she had the sense that the man outside the door had moved, that he had shifted his weight upon her sight. For a moment, she had the mind to turn off the lights and end the cat-and-mouse hunt of the night, but her arm had slumped when she reached for the switch.

The kitchen's light was burning, too, its lamp flickering uneasily at the end of its lifespan. She filled the cat bowl with more food, but halted. The smell of roses crawled up her back.

The floorboards hadn't moaned as they usually would if someone came in. There was no noise other than the heartbeat in her throat and the clock working away at time.

Inch by inch, her body turned—nothing.

Except, there was something.

Right there, in the corner. Tigris knew the coats she kept, but this one hadn't been hers—nor any customer begging for quick repair. This was a leftover by a guest, and she didn't need to smell its collar to know that this coat had been the source.

Roses had become as complex as each of their petals. They reminded her of her childhood, both the good and the bad, the war and the peace. What might have remained nostalgia evolved and grew its roots in the country. They became a part of him, too, pinned to his chest and making him smell like roses—or roses like him. From then on, he had permeated all memories of the good with its scent.

Well, not all of them.

Tigris had never understood what had prompted Coriolanus to propose to Livia. Where one might have expected a fresh and exciting love, Coriolanus had been anything but. Livia's intentions remained a mystery.

Despite avoiding Coriolanus as best she could, Livia Snow had been everywhere. She had seemed to take great relish in the public spotlight, appearing at new fashion releases, makeup lines, photoshoots, political celebrations. Seemingly, it was harder to avoid Livia than run into her, not that Tigris had thought much about running into her.

She remembered some of those events clearly. Remembered the silver dress with its puff sleeves in a cool lavender. The peacock-coloured outfit with its long sleeves and deep neckline had occupied her mind for hours on end. Seemingly, Livia had a great taste or an even greater stylist, but she knew how to dress herself. Understood, deeply, which colours suited her. How the light would touch her makeup and what fitted her cool undertone.

The day they had talked for more than a minute, Livia wore a black dress and a silver eagle below her chest. Its metallic wings stretched over naked skin. At first, that was all they had talked about, but the conversations took a warmer note. It had seemed that Livia saw right through Tigris, and had embraced her when their conversation ended and squeezed her hand tight. The pressure of her touch stayed with Tigris all night.

Livia Snow had not been what Tigris expected, least that she would be her downfall.

Today, she remembered Livia as brash and confident, and sometimes her laugh scratched a strange octave. She had an eye for the small beauty in life, and a bold heart that had carried her right into Tigris' former shop. Back then, the shop's windows had looked out to the main avenue, and watched the rich walk by. She enjoyed particular popularity when another District 2 victor would make it out alive.

Most people in the Capitol woke up late, but Tigris still opened relatively early for all those who needed to escape a crowd or needed rescue from a fashion faux pas. And, apparently, for those married to the President.

Even on her first visit, it hadn't taken them long to sit squeezed together in the tight backroom. Knees bumped into each other, laughter resounded and confessions exchanged. There had been a first for many moments between them. Yet, the first time that Livia's hand touched Tigris' while she laughed in her sweetly strange way, had gotten Tigris flustered in ways she knew would remain etched in her memory until her last breath.

Once Livia began to commission custom dresses, their time spent together increased marginally. Fitting dresses had become strangely intimate, assuring she would never pause her gaze too long or let her hands linger.

Somewhere in between those moments, Livia had asked.

Why a tiger?

It had been just like her to ask out of nowhere in particular. Following moments of quietness between them with furrowed brows and tightened lips, her face moving into something tense. Some days, like this one, she had voiced her ponder. Other times, Tigris had spent her time in quiet marvel.

Pausing, she had touched her hands. The black nails, the tattooed skin. She looked down upon them in past and present, following the lines that had been added since then.

It's my namesake .

Tigris had vaguely explained and Livia had looked at her as if the half-truth was not only evident, but greatly offended her.

That can't be all.

And Livia had looked at her as if, all this time, she had seen right through Tigris' skin. As if, throughout it all, there had been something inside Livia that knew.

It's not all.

She admitted. Knees had touched again as they sat together and Livia had listened. About the first games Tigris had styled someone. About the games that came after, and every game since.

Perhaps today, Tigris would not be that naive anymore, but Livia had been the last best hope for her life. And perhaps, it had only been a matter of time to trust someone, and to tell them all there had been hidden in the backrooms of Tigris' heart.

Livia had left the shop not long after. The evening glints of the sun kissed her uneven smile, and Tigris had finally known love.

On the doorstep, she had turned around.

Tigers are my favourites.

She hadn't known that this would be the last to ever hear of Livia. That the sun would never embrace her like that ever again. Had she known, she would have kissed her. But like everything between them, she had fooled herself in believing that they had afforded a blissful eternity together.

Shortly after the victory of her District 2 tribute, Brutus, Livia had died. Her lungs gave out, and she simply stopped breathing. They had mentioned her respiratory illness the past weeks, and mourned her greatly on a grey Thursday afternoon. Except, Livia had been perfectly healthy.

The mad king had taken her away, and Tigris' soul could never be dissevered from Livia's ever again.

The roses had permeated the black coat as if it had tied itself so closely around every inch that they could never be parted. For a long while, roses had reminded her of her family. Until, for the flutter of a raven's wing, they had been tied together with Livia.

She brushed the damned thing and felt its lovely touch kiss her back.

Tigris held the sleeve to her lips and imagined what it must have been like had she dared to kiss Livia that afternoon. Would the sun have hugged her differently that day? It was an awful hope she had to cling to, to imagine that something she could have done would have changed the circumstances for Livia.

But the truth was, nothing could.

The funeral had happened the next day, Friday. She knew that it would be foolish to cry. She knew, too, that there had been no version of her who wouldn't have cried.

It had been all there was. A single moment of weakness, a soul fallen apart, that had met with her cousin's gaze as they stood opposite in all black. And somehow, he had known. He had known that a person so tied to him, so owned by him, had taken root in someone else's heart. All she could have done was destroy him, but he had destroyed her first.

By Saturday, any moment of rebellion quenched underneath the peacekeeper's boots as they had ordered her out of her home and shop. There was no need to denounce her. Capitol people were short of memory, and the next designers were vying for a new spot.

For a while she had hoped for a killing blow. That, like the black rose and their papers, she could reveal in a quick death. But it had been Coriolanus' silence in his white palace and a new wife that had hurt the most. He had viewed her too important to kill, and yet too insignificant to see again. Despite all she had thought to have known about him, from innocent boy to despotic man, he might have had a sentimental streak reserved to those whose blood he shared.

She had never been given the chance to yell at him or to claw his heart out. A coward; he hadn't had the guts to talk to her. Not then, and never since.

Tigris flipped the light switch in the kitchen, watched the darkness embrace the coat and stepped back into the shop's main room.

There he was, the man underneath the lamplight. He had waited for her in the cold night's air. She stepped along the creaking floorboards. The cheap shop she had set up all those years ago. Years that had ticked away in an unnerving silence of the world around her. A living person buried, a beating heart quietened.

The clock struck midnight as she opened the door.

"Come inside, Mr. Heavensbee."


This one-shot is a follow-up on my longfic-those of you who read it will know who the guest that visited Tigris was. Do check it out if you are curious about the Capitol rebels.

The 'black rose' movement is a play on the White Rose Resistance Group during Nazi Germany. The title is a reference to 'The Tyger' by William Blake.