LVIII: The Capitol.
Theora Mazaryn-Reinhart, 21
Gamemaking Assistant
All things considered, being alive is not so bad.
Theora can't say Ravi Fusain thinks the same, but that's really none of her business any longer.
He still doesn't look right. Granted, the doctors did one hell of a job putting him back together, fusing broken bones into one. It was the surgeons after that had the tougher jobs, she suspected, of making him look normal. No scars. Not even a damn mark.
He still moved with a slight stiffness that could only be indicative of a fractured pelvis and broken femur, along with a tibia in three places. Theora hadn't been to see him—that wasn't a part of her purview. Elide had, though, just long enough to ensure he would be ready for this. It was part of her reporting back to the President, which felt like an hourly occurrence.
According to Elide he hadn't spoken. She had witnessed him walk up and down a sterile hall a dozen times over, unstable and limping, guided by a physical therapist and his mentor, who stared at Elide the entire time like she was the devil incarnate. He was certainly much better than what Elide had seen, though he was still much too quiet. Merride got words out of him like she was dragging them from his throat with her claw-like nails.
Theora hadn't watched the screen as it went over the recap. She had watched him, and whatever part of him left in the theater had vanished. There was no life behind his eyes, no seeing. They were showing the journey of a victor, and said victor wanted no part in it.
Even the clapping after the video had finished seemed dismal, as if the audience was echoing back his very being, showing their support. The President shook his hand and placed the crown upon his head and it felt hollow.
"Six would have done a better job at this," Torryn mutters, his voice still carrying over to her.
"You're welcome to go find him then," Elide throws back, her voice flat. There's been something missing from her too, something that went over the precipice when her life was on the line and could not climb back up.
She's been all talk. Arena plans for the summer. Fail-safes in case something is to go wrong next time. Nobody talks about the almost; they simply continue to crack on and split eggshells underneath their shoes.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Leda tries, hanging onto some amount of optimism. "You know that guy I was talking to? Well, he knows someone on the marketing team for the tour and he says—"
Ah yes. The damn tour. Theora has been against the very idea of it from day one, before she even knew the possibilities for who could be headlining it, and the idea seems ten times worse now that she knows it's Twelve. He's still in survival mode, practically fucking catatonic, and they're expecting him to get up on stages across the country and speak rehearsed speeches and act like everything's normal when he hasn't even been awake a week to process it.
Not that it's up to her. They're shipping him out to Eleven before the clock so much as hits midnight, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
At least it won't be on her to mitigate the disaster. Leda's blind optimism is surely attached to the idea that she'll have to do damage control if things go truly south.
"He's not going to be fine at all is he?" Elide questions quietly—it's meant only for Theora to hear.
"Would you be?" she asks.
"It's not about me."
"Last time I checked you came about as close to dying as he did. Answer the question."
Elide sighs heavily, leaning back in her chair. On-stage, Ravi Fusain exits with more speed and determination then she's seen him possess thus far, and Theora doesn't find she can blame him one bit. Granted, he's not running to anything but a train station, and things are only going to get worse from here, but the effort is admirable.
"I think I'd be a fucking wreck," Elide admits finally.
"There you go."
Elide isn't clueless. Frankly, none of them are. Leda can play at it all she likes, but disaster is imminent. Theora can only hope that Ravi creates enough of one that it finally finishes distracting the masses from the fact that he almost wasn't there at all. She can't even imagine how he took the news in the first place, no doubt gently broken to him by his mentor, but how do you possibly tell someone the hell they're going through is not yet ending?
And it is hell. She's realizing that now, and she's far from the only one. Theora stands when the rest of the collective in their glass encased box begins to rise, but she doesn't look away from the audience that still mill about below. There is no thunderous noise. Merride has already departed, and Theora easily missed her concluding words. Until next year, she would always say. But now it was rather until a few weeks from now, when we bring him back here like he never left. Or at least that was what Theora wished she would say.
To think that the shithole that was District Twelve would be the preferable place to be right now.
"You ready?" Elide asks, offering her arm. She's been doing that for a while now, but it seems like a newly constant thing in the last week. It seems like a reassurance thing, like Elide wants to know she's still present on this earth.
Theora doesn't allow herself to believe it's more than that. Elide will settle, and once she does, all of this will end.
"Did Torryn show you those early drawings?" Elide questions, navigating them from the aisle the moment Theora takes a hold of her arm.
"The butterflies?"
"Mhm."
"Petrova wants to make them poisonous."
"When doesn't Petrova want to make things poisonous?" she drawls, and Elide barks out a quick laugh. An unfamiliar sound these days. One that almost could take them back to before. No heavy decisions. No monumental moments. No living on borrowed time. Just the ease of life and each-other and the possibility of their futures.
There was no going back to that, even if Elide didn't realize it yet. They had buried that possibility with the rest of the arena.
Things were going to change—Theora has no doubt in her mind.
Isaura Marchesi, 29
Escort for District Twelve
There was no hope for any of these backwoods abominations they called Twelve's.
Callias had told him, upon passing the torch, that they weren't so bad. Callias had almost immediately been promoted to District Two after Cress Cassidy's victory, something he conveniently declined to mention at the time.
He was wrong. There was nothing good about any of them.
Cress had taken a dislike to him from the moment they first spoke on the train the year after she won, and she hadn't let up since. Her dislike meant the rest of them followed suit—they worked as one unit. They had to with so few of them.
For a moment, Isaura dares to have hope. Things cannot get any worse than than the Twelve everyone wanted to wager on dying the second the grace period ending and being left only with this. There wasn't money to scrounge up, nothing to advertise. Isaura knew it was a lost cause, so who can blame them for giving up?
Everyone in this train, evidently.
Though crowds remain outside as they pull away from the station in the Capitol, the mood is anything but celebratory inside. The moment the doors close behind them Ravi is gone—Isaura has no idea where he vanishes to, but judging by Cress' quick departure to the individual rooms further down the line, he's locking himself in his room. Nobody even thinks to stop him.
They have many hours before they arrive in Eleven, and Isaura tries. Do they ever fucking try. It all culminates in Embelia snatching the cue cards for rehearsals out of their hands. Embelia gives them to Ravi—so she says, anyway. Isaura has no way to tell because they've been so effectively blocked out of doing their damn job.
Vesrin has nothing to offer them but a withering smile and an occasional condescending pat on the shoulder—he doesn't like Isaura any better than the rest of them. They don't have dinner together, there are no meetings to discuss what will happen in the Districts and the way everyone should behave. Or maybe they do have those dinners, but Isaura is never invited.
That promotion can't come any too soon.
Much to Isaura's surprise, Eleven is not a total disaster. They expected as much. Even getting Ravi on that stage seems something like a miracle—his voice is so far removed from the situation he may as well not be there at all. Once, and only once, do his eyes flicker up, and they linger for a heartbeat on Farasha's parents standing on their own raised platform.
They knew it was coming. He was told as much. Still, it does not distract from the fact that there's a goddamn coffin on the stage with them. It's all as macabre as it can get, this half-assed attempt at a makeshift funeral.
Isaura holds their breath in anticipation for whatever god-awful comment he's worked up in his own head, but whatever it is stays there. Eventually Ravi swallows and his eyes go back down to the card and everything is alright, at least for the time being.
To get through two Districts unscathed is impressive given what Isaura is dealing with, but Ten is luckily just as distant as Eleven, if not moreso. The square is filled with a bunch of dusted over riff-raff not much better than Twelve's own. The stages for the tributes are both tragically empty, making the presence of the coffins all the more stark. The baking sun is not enough to disguise the faint chill in the air, though Isaura thinks it makes something of a difference. The crowd is all too-used to it, squinting against the glare and silent no matter who speaks—the mayor, Ravi, anyone at all. They've never seen a group of people so deeply unimpressed.
It's not a place Isaura would never long for, nor one they will miss, but it's all they can think about as the train pulls up in Nine.
They know this is where it all falls apart.
On the television they've only ever seen sprawling golden fields; the Nine they see now is bleak and barren, made complete by a heavily overcast sky, the threat of rain lingering on the horizon. A thing they'd normally welcome. On a day like today, it only serves to make the mood more somber. Each step forward it feels like Isaura is hitting a brick wall, and even in the Justice Building it does not vanish.
Isaura bides their time. It would be easy to step forward and just do it, but they know better. Embelia turns to speak more properly with Dayne, and Cress turns her head just enough towards Hari's quiet conversation that she's sufficiently distracted. Vesrin is the only one with a clear look, and that's only if he turns around. He's too busy looking at the stage.
Isaura steps forward and grabs Ravi tight around the arm. "Don't mess up the jacket," Arixa barks at him. Right. They forget about her. It's not like she's going to do anything about it, though. Arixa has even less pull here as a stylist than Isaura does. So what if the group appears to like her better, include her in more… it doesn't matter.
Ravi starts at the fingers holding onto him, moving to pull away, but Isaura always had plans to make this quick. "Listen to me," they hiss. "You read every word off that damn card. Nothing more, got it? No need to make a scene."
"Hey," Cress snaps. "Hands off, asshole."
"Excuse me, Miss Cassidy—"
"Yeah, you're excused," she interrupts, shouldering between them so that there's no longer any clear path to Ravi at all. It's done now, though. Should be, at least. Ravi is still staring at them, eyes still swimming with some amount of uncertainty… almost like he had been planning on saying something.
"Don't," they snap, just for good measure.
"Wow," they hear Hari mutter, none too quietly. "Yours is just as bad as ours."
Isaura has to ignore the comments. They have to ignore everything if getting through to the other side of this remains an option. All they can fixate on is Ravi's carefully controlled footsteps as the mayor urges him on-stage. The wooden slats beneath his feet become what Ravi focuses on—he reaches out without looking to grab a hold of the microphone stand, the only steadying force left in the world.
It's easy to see him sway in the breeze despite his white-knuckled grip, the flat tone of his words as he reads, almost obediently.
No scenes. That's all Isaura wants. It's not so much to ask for, is it?
Ravi looks up. And unlike in Eleven, when he almost immediately looked back down, his eyes settle on a spot and stay there. Isaura doesn't even have to look to know what he's staring at; t he stage for Casia Braddock's too-big fucking family is packed edge-to-edge. Isaura is surprised someone hasn't yet fallen off into the dirt below. Is it so difficult to give the people enough room? They're all so close together it's hard to tell where one begins and another ends, the coffin obscured entirely.
Ravi is still staring at them. Isaura isn't even sure he's blinked. "For heaven's sake," they mutter, and Arixa elbows them sharply in the side.
"I'm sorry," Ravi says, and they inhale. Figures direct orders are hard for people from Twelve. "I…. she should be here right now instead of me. I'm sorry she isn't."
It's been days now since Isaura has heard him genuinely speak—the speeches are one thing, sure, but he sounds robotic, so far removed from human that it's a wonder he knows how to pronounce the words. Right then and there Isaura hears a flicker of what he sounded like once before, even if his voice shakes.
When he exits, he brushes right past Isaura without making eye contact. Cress is hot on his heels, winding an arm tight around his back to keep pace with him even as it increases.
"I'm sorry," Isaura hears. "Her family…"
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Cress responds, turning at the last moment before they round the corner to shoot daggers in Isaura's direction. They don't land quite as hard as she intends. Isaura is grateful, frankly, that it didn't go beyond that. They can handle a few pointedly aimed looks, have been for years.
"Can you blame the kid?" Arixa asks. "It's one thing to do it, another to look directly at her family and not feel anything."
"He didn't have to look," Isaura says flatly. Everything would be so much simpler if everyone would just listen to them.
They have yet to start. Isaura would be delusional if they thought anything was going to change.
That isn't going to stop them from trying.
Vesrin Acevedo, 79
Victor of the 38th Hunger Games, District Twelve Mentor
"It's good to see you," he murmurs, smiling when Astrid wraps him in a warm hug. "How are the grandkids?"
"Being grandkids," she replies. "No wonder I went gray so early."
"Kind of insulting to the old man, don't you think?" he asks her. Astrid shoves him gently in the shoulder, echoing his smile. For a moment it's easy for Vesrin to pretend that's all this is, that he's just visiting a friend. It's such a rarity these days.
He can't help but think of Indra when he so much as sees the horizon-line of Seven in the distance, and how she should be here with them. It's far too easy to reminisce on the what-ifs. At least in Eight he didn't feel quite so intertwined with everything going on. The crew there stuck tight and fast to one another in the strangest of ways, and not even Vesrin could break through those walls.
After Nine, Ravi's distance from those in Eight had been a reprieve. He knows it's much the same here, as well. Astrid is watching him, though, tracking his movements across the stage as if examining a new specimen.
"How's he doing?" she asks.
"As well as to be expected."
She hums. As well as they all do when they're paraded around and made-up like dolls. Astrid went through it; her son twenty-five years later. They all know how ugly it can get.
Figures the one year they could have used a proper Career to gallivant around, and there was no chance at getting one. Vesrin wouldn't have even complained.
At his other side, Cress sighs so deeply that her entire body shifts, their shoulders brushing together. "What's up, kid?" he asks, watching her shake her head in an immediate response. "You might as well tell me before I spend the rest of the day bothering you about it."
Her eyes are troubled. "You see what he's doing?"
Vesrin blinks—Celadon's just standing there minding his own business, so it can't be him, which of course leaves only Ravi. It's a familiar sight. Standing in front of a microphone, appearing before a densely packed and jaded crowd. He reaches up, swiping away some of the hair that clings to the shell of his ear, and his hand lingers.
"What's he doing?" Vesrin asks.
"Touching his ear like that. He's been doing it a lot. You remember what the doctor said?"
Even if she's asking too many rhetorical questions for his liking, Vesrin does remember. It had been a laundry list. Beyond that, even. But it felt important to remember. The broken bones and the cuts and everything that had vanished. That girl had sliced into his face so deep that when it slid to the side it shattered two of the bones in his ear. The doctor had said the repairs had been difficult, but it could as well just be fine. But if it wasn't, oh well! Simple fix! Put him back in surgery again, and then again if they needed to, and Ravi had said—
"He said it was fine," Vesrin remembers. "That there wasn't anything wrong."
"I know that's what he said."
"You think he's lying?"
Cress' hand bumps against his in reminder, and the space where his left pinky had once been, now only a glaring space. "I think he doesn't want the Capitol's hands all over him anymore."
And how the hell do you tell him otherwise? That he's wrong? If Cress is in fact right, the kid has every reason to run as fast and as far away from the Capitol and its surgeons as he wants. They had offered Vesrin a prosthetic years back, all for a damn finger. Vesrin had refused it; he didn't need the damn thing anyway.
He guesses you don't really need two working ears, either.
When Ravi returns to them, Cress doesn't question it. She doesn't push. Vesrin doesn't feel the need to either, and whatever of the conversation Astrid had been clued into does not come up again.
She offers to take them on a tour all the way to a bit of untouched woods, instead, and it sounds like the best damn idea Vesrin has ever heard.
He starts to notice it more on the train to Six. Or rather, he pays better attention. Whilst Isaura rambles on like a blithering idiot under their breath, Ravi doesn't so much as look their way. If they were speaking louder it would be unavoidable, but that tone, the distance between them… there's a chance that the poor kid just doesn't hear them.
Then again, who wants to hear Isaura Marchesi go on for hours? Vesrin certainly doesn't.
He thinks it might be getting better, at least improving somewhat, but the escort for Six shows up and the two of them just don't shut up. It's getting to the point where Vesrin is almost going to have to introduce himself; they feel like part of the crew, whoever they are. He wishes he could say the sooner they get out of here the better, but that's far from the truth.
Six will be bad, but Five will be worse.
At least Ravi didn't have some kind of weirdly intellectual connection to Six. They had things in common, but it ended there. Weston Katsouris was arrogant and loud-mouthed and he thought it would be an easy fight. What he didn't expect was for someone to fight back, even in such a minimal way. In that fateful kick to the chest, Ravi had sealed someone else's fate.
Merride had been keen to point that out when she had him on stage. It had been mentioned no short of three times, at least, and that was just what Vesrin remembered.
It shouldn't be so hard here. Outside of a repeated speech, a few carefully changed words, there's no one to exploit his every movement, each word out of his mouth. He was well-informed of the situation here, of Vadric's recently deceased mother and the heightened emotions otherwise. People were always more fragile when they realized just how close they came to a year saved from near-starvation.
The only goal is to get him off that stage. When he leaves the microphone and makes headway towards them, Vesrin allows himself to take a breath.
Before he's halfway back, a shout rings out across the square. Vesrin misses the first words, but the next are loud and clear.
"Do you need me to fucking repeat myself?" the voice yells. "Sure, make sure everyone hears me!"
He sees her now. The older girl, the one on Katsouris' stage. Sister, he recalls. Her raised hand comes crashing down, closed fist thumping down on the edge of the coffin. The dull thud echoes throughout the square. "Bet they didn't fucking tell you he's not in here, huh Twelve?"
He sees Ravi mouth a careful, awed what? frozen in place halfway back to them.
"That's what we get, right?" she continues. "They take him from us in the first place, and then they fucking leave him down there! They don't give a shit about us, not any of us!"
Vesrin misses the beginning flurry of movement, but not the two Peacekeepers as they grab a hold of her, shouldering away her parents, and drag her to the ground below the stage. The younger girl is bawling, now, knees crumpling.
Ravi takes half a step forward, a mere stutter towards the front of the stage. Before he can blink Cress lunges out in one swift moment, such a blur he can hardly make sense of it, and yanks him back. The mayor orders the doors closed, plunging them into an unsteady gloom full of too-much sudden movement and very loud voices.
"He's still down there?" Ravi's voice, still so new and strange to him, cuts through the fog. "Why would they…?"
"I don't know," Cress cuts in. "Nico—"
But Nico's gone. Vesrin doesn't know when she vanished, but just a minute ago she was standing less than five feet behind them, watching the proceedings, and now she's gone.
"They'll hurt her," Ravi says distantly, eyes fixed on a vacant point somewhere above Cress' shoulder.
Vesrin knows what he's imagining. He's seeing the same thing.
"We don't know that," Vesrin offers. And they don't, not truly. Killing her only proves her point in the end, does it not? That the Capitol truly doesn't give a shit, never has and never will. They'll kill two hundred and eighty-seven kids and then one more in Six, to boot, and isn't that just a perfect image?
More coffins to bury, empty or not. To maintain control, those in charge have to see that—Vesrin is convinced of that much.
He has to be. The alternative is much worse.
Embelia Denholm, 67
Victor of the 51st Hunger Games, District Twelve Mentor
They don't kill Sabrina Katsouris.
Embelia doesn't know why. A decade ago, they'd have put a bullet in her head in front of the whole crowd. All she gets is a message from Everus telling her otherwise an hour before the train pulls into Five's station, and for that she's relieved.
Somehow, they have more concerning things to worry about.
From the moment he steps onto the platform, Ravi is shaking. Hardly, almost imperceptibly, but she notices.
They all do.
"Remember," Cress tells him. "Same as all the other places. You don't have to say anything different if you don't want to, alright? Just a few minutes and it's over. That's all you have to tell yourself."
Except a few minutes feels like hours when stepping out there is akin to torture. Embelia remembers the feeling like it was yesterday. Of course some places are worse than others. If they were all the same, there would be no point to any of it. One should have been hell for her—she killed them both, hacked the boy to bits when he just wouldn't stop, but it was Seven that haunted her. Peri. The girl that had been her friend, her only constant in an otherwise hell.
There were always things that were going to haunt you. She suspected this would stick with him for a long time. There was something in the way he moved onto the stage, his hesitance and averted eyes. Of course there had never been confidence in him, but he could manage otherwise. Beside her, Isaura was already muttering something under their breath—no doubt a filthy comment that Embelia had no desire to hear.
Even at the microphone Ravi doesn't look up. His hands tremble around the card, and it only takes a second, a tragically woeful second, and the card slips out of his hand.
The few remaining murmurs in the crowd slip away. "Oh, for fuck's sake," Isaura hisses, contempt dripping from their voices.
Even here she can see the war in him, the way his hands twitch towards where the card has fluttered gently to land at his feet. But his legs quake. His throat bobs. If he happens to bend down for it, Embelia doesn't know if he'll have the courage to stand back up. In the end, he doesn't move. If Ravi moving was only going to result in imminent collapse, it may have been for the best. But he's not speaking, either, not doing anything but letting the panic claw back up his throat.
"Get him off that stage," Isaura snaps. "Get him off that stage, before—"
Cress is on the move before the words have even left Isaura's mouth. Embelia has felt such pride for her since the moment she stepped from that arena, but nothing stronger than in that moment as Cress rushes onto the stage, pasting a brilliantly fake smile on her face. "District Five!" she shouts, raising an arm in greeting. The other winds tight around Ravi's back the moment she's close enough to grab ahold of him, pulling him flush to her side. He staggers, hand gripping white-knuckled at the back of her shirt.
"I bet you didn't expect to see the lot of us again so soon," Cress begins, laughing awkwardly. "You know, given our track record."
It's clear she didn't expect much of a reaction; her face sombers as she levels a quick glance at Ravi before turning back to the crowd, squeezing her arm tighter around his side. "You've… you've lost a lot. Just like everyone else. But the difference is, I'm realizing, is that you did it all in a span of only two months. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that has been for you all."
Cress has never been the pinnacle of put-together herself—she's much too caustic, unwilling to temper herself for anyone. It's strange, the things they can be capable of when there's no other option.
"District Five," she says once again. "Know that we—Ravi, and myself and the others—we mourn those losses with you as we do our own."
Cress' smile is much too sad to be properly called one as she looks at Ravi, eyes softening. "And I know, as I hope everyone does, that Kai and Zoya meant more to him than words will ever be able to describe."
His eyes squeeze shut—Embelia almost expects to see tears finally releasing as Cress turns them both away from the microphone. He tears herself free from her grip, feet nearly tripping over themselves as he fights those last few feet off the stage. Though the assembled crowd at stage left is nothing impressive, the flurry of movement could almost be called such. Vesrin steps out of Ravi's away, as does Arixa—there's no point in trying to stop or even slow him. The mayor and his family only look perplexed. Sarain leans back against the wall behind them with a heavy sigh, scrubbing at the spot between her eyes as if plagued by a headache.
It's Isaura only, of course, who steps in Ravi's direction, a hand outstretched as if their plans to grab and publicly reprimand him were a long time in the making. They don't quite have the chance. Cress is quickly there, cutting in-between them, a shout building on her lips. Vesrin is right behind her.
From Embelia's dealings, Isaura is more bothersome than anything, not exactly difficult to deal with if you know the proper way to step up. They'll have no trouble in handling it.
That leaves her with the task many would say to be more difficult.
In only a matter of seconds, Ravi has disappeared. It wouldn't be so difficult—outside of this space, the hallways of Five's Justice Building are mostly barren, marred only by the occasional shadow of a Peacekeeper. Embelia only has to follow the halls, the natural path. Most of the doors are closed. The windows, sparse as they may be, reveal a dispersing crowd. Not something Ravi would ever chance.
It's not long before she finds him. There is no other explanation except for it to be him, this crouched and yet shapeless mass that has found the floor, hiding against the darkness and safety of a wall instead of facing the world beyond it. His hands are laced so tightly in his hair she can only imagine pain is arising from the action. Embelia crouches beside him, hearing only the uneven and too-quick rasp of his breath as he struggles to find air. She lays a gentle hand on his back; something in her chips away when he still flinches, even at that, unable to immediately recognize the familiarity behind it.
"I'm sorry," he manages, voice cracking. It's much too reminiscent of Nine for her liking, endless apologies spilling from his lips that are both unnecessary and unneeded. "I'm sorry, I—"
"Shh," she soothes. "It's alright. Just focus on your breathing."
A monumental task, Embelia knows, but the only one she can think to give him. He continues to quiver beneath her touch, eyes squeezed shut—what little of his face she can see has gone white as a sheet, and she can feel the chill in him even through his carefully tailored jacket.
She'd like to give him something better. It won't be long before they're gone from this place. She can request that someone bring them to one of the nicer beaches in Four, let him sit in the sand and let the sun wash over him. He can see the snow-capped mountains in Two in all their grandeur. There is more than this hell he's living in.
It's not something he'd appreciate now.
Embelia is all too-prepared to settle down on the floor next to him for the foreseeable future when she becomes aware of a presence behind them, lingering just close enough to be felt. All of her people would have made themselves known—she only has guesses, instead, far too many of them to nail down anything in particular.
Whoever it may be, they must see the depth of the situation. She doesn't dare alert Ravi to it. Embelia cranes her head back, hoping to give whomever it may be the most self-explanatory look she can muster. Meaning scram, and preferably quick.
It takes her a second to pinpoint them, embarrassingly enough. The slight weathering to his face and his deep-set eyes, the familiar curl to his hair. A face she only recognizes because she had seen it just minutes ago staring back at them from its own stage, head resting ever so gently on the coffin in the middle of it.
Embelia lets her hand slip slowly from Ravi's back, careful not to disturb him as she stands, stepping closer to the not-so stranger. "I'm sorry," she apologizes, voice carefully low. "I'm not sure this is the most appropriate time—"
"I didn't mean to interrupt," Kai Melchior's father says—she doesn't even know his damn name, and there's no way to ask without alerting Ravi to his presence. He looks too much like his son to begin with, a picture of what Kai could have one day looked like if not doomed from the very beginning.
His eyes remain fixated on Ravi for several heartbeats, glossy with unshed tears. There's no hatred in them.
Embelia makes sure to remember that.
He shakes himself, suddenly, eyes turning back to the slim white envelope in his hands as she holds it out towards her. "If it's not too much trouble, I wanted this to get to him. If you could ensure that happens…"
"What is it?" she questions, though she's already grabbed ahold of it.
"A letter. For whenever he deems fit, however long that may be."
Embelia nods slowly. The man does not have it in him to smile as she tucks it inside her jacket—she cannot blame him for being unable to find even a split second of joy for a job completed. "I'll see that it gets to him."
"Thank you, Mrs. Denholm."
She feels she should do something more—present further questions, shake his hand, offer her condolences. He turns away from her before Embelia can decide on which to be the best course of action; his eyes flicker downward, back to Ravi and then quickly up again, almost too swiftly to be seen.
Embelia sees in him so much of herself. A parent struggling to navigate the world. Grief, felt over years yet still without enough preparation to appropriately handle it. But he's gone, just as quickly as Ravi has disappeared from them. Ravi, who remains on the ground still, shoulder now slumped against the wall as if the last of the energy from his flight has dissipated. She takes her spot up once again by his side to begin a quiet vigil, gripping at the hand that has finally unlaced from his hair.
He squeezes back, skin clammy, and she's relieved for it. The rest of the Districts, even the Capitol, will not be so horrific. There will be a time when things can look up, when she can place this letter in his hands.
Today is not that day. Looking at him now, it seems that day may be a long way away.
Catriona Rey, 38
President of Panem
There is no saying any of this went off without a hitch.
Something must be deeply wrong with her, for Catriona feels contented, at least, with what she has. It has something to do with the relative… tranquility, if you dared to call it that, of the end of the tour. Ravi Fusain had no ties to the places they made him trudge through, all the way from Four to One, even if his deadened eyes and weakened voice nearly suggested otherwise.
Five had taken his remaining spirit, the little of it left, and cracked it wide open. Whilst many of her advisors had bemoaned his poor showing, Catriona could only remain shocked that it had not been worse. All you had to do was take one look at him and know it could be. Was that not enough to harbor happiness over?
She wishes she could be truly overjoyed, but this type of night will allow no such thing. Too many people, too many cameras. If someone didn't want a soundbite from her, they wanted a photograph, even a look. It didn't matter how many celebrities and victors you could pack into one tour-finishing gala—they all still wanted her.
It wasn't a bad thing. Being wanted. It was exhausting though. She knew why they were doing it, too. The usual celebratory manner of this event was missing its typical spark—even if for a brief moment, Catriona could enable them to forget the year-long horror that had been inflicted upon them and the living, permanent reminder of it that moved through the room like a ghost.
Catriona should have had his stylist dress Ravi Fusain all in white—at least it would have fit the mood better.
"It's quite the party, as always," Beatrix says, stepping closer to her side.
"As always," she agrees. No one would dare to call it anything less, not even Sevaine's wife. But last year the woman was raving drunk and having the time of her life—now she has yet to even manage a full glass of champagne, and there seems to be a frown fixed permanently on her face as she surveys the room.
If you couldn't fool Beatrix into thinking everything was alright, you couldn't fool anyone.
"I can't stand to look at him," Beatrix murmurs. "Not with how upset he looks."
If she doesn't want to watch Ravi any longer for how upset he looks, can Beatrix even dare to imagine how upset he truly is? Probably not. But she recognizes it, and that means something. Everything means something, doesn't it.
Beatrix is the type of woman who would prefer to see Six's type come out victorious year after year, the ones with a gleam in their eye and a real backbone and the ability to charm any crowd. The fact of the matter is, people don't like having to confront their own atrocities. Cheering on the murder of a pack of deprived children is one thing when the sole survivor seems happy about it.
Twelve is more upsetting. Fitting, perhaps, for her rather upset people. If it had been Six, there was a chance they could forgot, that things could go on as normal. It was possible at this point that Catriona was the only person in the universe who knew otherwise. She could see.
Someone had to.
"I spoke to Elide," Beatrix offers. "Heard quite a few things about their plans for the next arena. Sounds like a real doozy."
It was only a few short months away, but Catriona had no doubt. That, and she knew it would all be pulled off swimmingly. No one was risking their lives this time, not for anything. Their plans were already laid in motion, and there was no stopping the ever-growing momentum.
In an ideal world, the 101st would allow all of this to be forgotten. In an ideal world, there wouldn't be anything they had to forget about in the first place. But this was the real world—cruel and unforgiving as ever, and it had changed.
The shift has already begun. The turn. Things are beginning to change, and they'll continue to do so with or without Catriona's permission. She has no choice but to be on the right side of it.
History is written by the victors, after all.
As per usual, note here. If only because after how many words I force you to read next chap you won't have energy left to read a stupid note.
There's no need for me to be as egregiously sappy as I sometimes am because I know this isn't the end, but as always, I can only repeatedly thank everyone who stuck with me on this (longer than usual journey) and remind you just how ETERNALLY grateful I am for the love, support, comments, friendship, etc. It truly makes everything that much better. This was certainly no TC—I struggled way more than I would have liked to struggle, but that's life and more than likely a permanent fixture for me, something I have had to work to accept, and so I thank everyone for the patience along this journey.
Thank-you for all of these kids. I am possibly most attached to this cast out of everyone, so it seems sort of backwards that I didn't let them all live, but hey, I was committed. Of course, thank you to Erik for your son—this fic would not be what it is without him.
As for the future, there are two more fics planned to follow this one. The first, IFE, a mini subplot-ish fic to solidify the universe and where it's at before VAM, the SYOT that will follow. Given that I still have to write a very considerably large last epilogue and I have never been the type to jump headfirst into things immediately, I can give you no concrete date as to when these things will happen. I know, once again asking for patience is sort of ridiculous, but I can do nothing else. Submissions for VAM will be opening once the previous fic comes to an end more than likely exclusively over in my channel on SYOT Verses, so keep an eye out there if you're interested.
I don't think I have anything else to say. Idk, I'm sleepy. But regardless, Ravi and I will be seeing you with the last epilogue, hopefully not in an eternity.
Until next time.