PART III : The Flower of Panem
"Apparently with no surprise,
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,"
Apparently With No Surprise
- Emily Dickinson
Chapter 37: Mourn and Move On
"Friends, family and strangers, we gather here to mourn Uriel Orson, beloved father, grandfather and victor of the 12th Hunger Games." Mayor Weathers began in a somber voice as the night wind whistled sadly.
Around a small coffin in front of the entrance of an underground chamber, gathered a small group of people. Wreath of poppies and willow leaves made by Sera and her cousin laid upon the coffin.
Peacekeepers guarded the private funeral from a distance while mourners laid rest to Uriel.
With a blank face, Sera stared at the body of Uriel. He was cold and lifeless but she felt nothing. She hardly knew him and even if she did, she would hardly wait for someone else.
"A life lived in sacrifice, Uriel will be remembered by all. His legacy will carry on."
Uriel was fortunate. A huge family, a circus of grandchildren and children with no ties to the Capitol. He was fortunate. One of the lucky ones, dead from old age, just shy from his 80th Birthday.
Not many victors had that privilege. As Sera had learned the hard way that some victors died a decade or two after their games. Side effects of the Hunger Games.
Uriel was fortunate.
Sera wasn't.
She had a time limit, she just didn't know when her time would stop. At least, she was trying not to find out.
Her gaze flickered to Leora who stood across from her with her arms crossed protectively, covering her wounds. It didn't take a mind-reader to know what the older victor was thinking about and she couldn't help but click her tongue in silent disgust.
Leora looked up and rolled her eyes before turning away. She wouldn't actually go through it. She'd be insane if she did or maybe she was. She took a careful step towards the opening of the chamber but before she could take another, a sober Wells pulled her back with a right grip on her hand.
"Tonight we say goodbye to him and mourn him before moving on."
Sera stiffened at the Mayor's words and suddenly she felt as if she wasn't at the private graveyard on the outskirts of Lux but rather at her apartment in the Capitol.
A younger version of her stood silently to the side as a living ghost of the boy she thought she loved or cared for paced in anger.
Dimly lit apartment with no sound of music or laughter just deafening silence was permanently etched into her mind. His disappointed face and her refusal to tell him anything was their downfall. She had many regrets, maybe he was one of them, she didn't really like to think about it.
But somehow under the pale moonlight at a graveyard where they were burying Uriel, the mayor's words had inevitably reminded her of the memory she had locked up behind a vault of memories she never wanted to revisit. Just one small phrase had chipped the vault door and the memory leaked through the cracks.
"His death was accidental, old age that no one could've predicted." The mayor went on.
Crack.
Another crack in the vault.
"It wasn't my fault." She shut her eyes trying to escape the oncoming flood but it was no use. "You think I have enough power to poison those people?"
"I don't know! That's why I'm asking you! Did you do it?"
"Death comes for us all."
Crack.
"Death comes for us all, it's just…it came for them before any of us."
"Do you even hear yourself? What if you drank the wine or Annie did?"
"Then we'd be dead."
"You don't care?"
"Of course I care."
"So did you do it."
"Why—"
"I saw you." Calm anger in that voice she loathed to hear. "In the aftermath, your face…what if it was me?"
Mayor Weathers coughed loudly, the late spring cool night air wasn't the best for someone recovering from an illness but he pressed on. His wife, Estelle looked up at him in concern and left their children to Talissa and Huxley to go stand by her husband.
Estelle took over from her husband and sent him off to the side. Nobody reacted much, Uriel's daughters and sons were too busy wailing over their deceased father to even care. His grandchildren were silent or mourning like their parents.
Uriel really was fortunate.
With a quick glance at her husband's eulogy note, Estelle cleared her throat and carried on. "Death is inevitable. We all die and one thing we must all understand is that we shouldn't follow those who leave us before we want them to." Estelle's hand shook a little and she let out a nervous breath. The scars that the death of her brother and fellow tribute left her were still fresh even after so many years. "W-we should mourn them and do our best to move on in their memory."
Crack.
"I'd mourn you, of course." Quiet murmur of her young self devoid of any emotions echoed in her ears like a death bell. "And then…I'd move on."
Wind started to pick up and Estelle hurried to end her speech, leaving Uriel's family to say their last goodbyes.
Dust could be smelt in the air as the dark night sky above became even darker. Forceful embrace of the dark clouds covered the bright moon that lit up the cemetery.
Lights dotted around the cemetery grew brighter within seconds as Sera looked up at the cloudy night skies.
A crack of thunder echoed in the distance as the wails of mourners grew louder. Ramiel's hand on Sera's shoulder grew stiff as he looked over at his older sister and her husband for an umbrella. Huxley wordlessly passed an umbrella to his brother-in-law, being careful not to disturb the sleeping child in his arms.
Another crack of thunder echoed in the distance as mourners looked up at the sky in caution.
"We should bury him now before the storm rolls in and the soil gets muddy." Porter said quietly with her eyes on the dark skies.
Her words, though true, were mostly ignored with Leora muttering something along the lines of burying Porter instead. Zephyr clasped his hands over his mouth and stifled his laughter while Sera looked at them in silent disgust.
This was a funeral.
She turned away from the scene and instead stared at the coffin holding Uriel's body. If he was anyone else, he'd be cremated after all burials were rare in Five.
Uriel was fortunate.
It was expensive and there was little to no space to bury a corpse. Most of the fields were occupied by solar panels or wind farms. There was only one cemetery. Most people were cremated and their ashes. That was what happened to Sera's parents. They were turned to ashes and their ashes put away into the hall of records in the Justice Building.
Aunt Dahlia was also turned to ashes. Nox didn't want her to be buried and neither did Talissa. Only Sera didn't have a say in her funeral, she was too numb to really think let alone say a word. Sera didn't even remember if her aunt even had a choice in how they would send her off.
She knew that some were lucky to be buried like Uriel. Those people were the people from Lux. They were fortunate to bury their loved one in an underground mausoleum. Sera guessed that victors were the second group of people allowed the luxury.
She didn't really know, nobody did if she really thought about it.
Uriel was the first victor from Five to die and in turn, the first to be granted a chamber for him and his descendants to be buried in an underground chamber. He was Five's first victor and now he was a cold corpse, waiting to be buried.
In the end, Uriel was no different from those other tributes or those insects Sera used to pick the wings off of when she was bedridden child waiting for death to come but death never came. Death only lingered at her door, biding its time and waiting for her to get too attached to living just before it took her breath away.
But Uriel was fortunate.
He wouldn't have to face the storm that was coming.
Thunder rumbled above as Uriel's coffin was taken down to the chambers below where he would be resting for the next eternity or so.
Her bandaged right arm hidden away by the thick black sleeves of her funeral attire seemed to feel tight. Wounds that she had just tended seemed to catch fire and the burn made her clench her jaws tight in an attempt to hold back a scream.
Death comes for us all.
How long did Sera have until she was the one being lowered into a mausoleum.
How long did she have left until she closed her eyes for the last time.
She knew exactly how long and so did her brother and sister. Their cautious gaze on her as the coffin was taken told anyone enough. It wasn't the same gaze they held when she was younger, it was different. The way their eyes watered, turned a pale pink and creased was oh-so familiar that nobody could've mistaken that look, not even Nox who Sera wanted to hide the truth from.
Her younger cousin's nervous gaze met her blank and cold silvery eyes and she smiled in reassurance but he stopped looking at her. His focus was on Ramiel's shaky hand and his stiff prosthetic arm that held the umbrella and the way Ramiel looked at Sera as if she'd disappear with the oncoming storm.
Nox knew those looks all too well.
Before he could say a thing, the storm had rolled in and the clouds burst with rain as the wind howled and screamed in grief.
Sera turned away from her family and left them behind, not caring if the rain drowned her, she had to leave. The more she stayed at the same spot, the more suffocated she felt.
On the outskirts of the stone and metal cemetery stood Oran dressed in black, taking shelter under the wings of a stone angel. He seemed to blend in with the night and the rain with the way he was dressed and moved. If Sera didn't know where to look for him, her childhood friend would've been masked by the darkness.
Oran towered over her, his shadow covering what little she could see in the little light the cemetery had. Sera glanced over at Oran and motioned him to give her some distance but inwardly she couldn't help but curse his growth. She thought he would've stopped growing years ago but somehow in the last year of his teens, he grew even more while Sera stayed mostly the same.
Lightning cracked, lighting up the whole cemetery. "Anything new?"
"Heard there's plans to expand some of the wind farms and the solar farms along with a new hydro-plant."
"Expected that. There's been a slow shift from coal to other sources of energy for a while—at least that's what my brother told me."
Oran shook his head. "No, this is different. The expansion is anything anyone has ever seen. I talked to a few retired plant workers from the Slog and Hollow, apparently they've been given a notice to come back."
"They gave a request for old workers to come back?"
"I should've been more clear." Oran muttered while checking if the two were still alone. "The notice wasn't a request—it was an order. They don't have a choice. My father got one a few days back."
"But your father wasn't a plant worker. He was on standby for aid with fires and first aid."
"Yeah, they want him and people like him back as well."
That didn't make sense.
Sera couldn't wrap her head around the sudden expansion of their district's power exports. They already supplied enough to keep the entirety of Panem running. Their district wasn't one of the poorer districts as a result but they weren't wealthy by any means, they still had their problems.
"You know it's not my place to say this." Oran began, pulling his hood up, hiding his short coily hair and trying his best to stay dry. "But the way it's all going, I think they're trying to cut Twelve off."
Sera clicked her tongue, a poor habit she had picked up from a certain Gamemaker. "There's nothing to cut off. We have one coal power station and even then it's working at less than half its full capacity. The rest were converted to other types of plants."
"Aren't trains run on coal?"
"Not all of them. I don't know. Zephyr or someone from Three might know." Beetee or Wiress would know more but she shelved those thoughts for later and glanced over at Oran. He was already overthinking and she'd prefer if he didn't poke his nose in places where she didn't want him to. "But…that has nothing to do with us—whether Twelve is being cut off or not. We don't need to think about it."
"Well, it kind of does if you really think about it…" Oran trailed off. He kept glancing over at Sera trying to get her to talk about her own thoughts, he had a guess that she knew more than she let on.
And she did.
She had some suspicions on the whole matter. It seemed to her that each year District 12 was becoming more and more useless to Panem. Coal was their only export but at one point, Twelve and Five were both important pillars of Panem and at times pitted against one another but unlike Five, Twelve was more rebellious. They could afford to be. They had nothing and having nothing meant they had no fear of losing everything. It also helped that they were the furthest away from the Capitol.
But somehow the move to render Twelve useless didn't really make sense in the grand scheme of things. They were the example district, the district the Capitol used to punish to show the other district that they needed to behave.
It didn't make sense but at the same time, she thought there was more to it.
Twelve were neighbors with Thirteen…
Thirteen.
"-era." Oran's face concerned was mere inches away from hers. "You okay? I asked if I should-"
"No. You've done enough, it's best if you don't dig around never know whose attention you might catch."
"Well it doesn't really matter, nobody really notices me—perks of being the local errand boy."
Sera smiled. "Find a real job." She joked.
"I tried and it didn't work. It doesn't pay well either." Oran kicked the wet soil and looked at Sera but she wasn't really looking at him. "...Does the flower shop need any-"
"No. Zephyr is helping full-time with the delivery and Nox is managing the rest."
Oran sighed, disappointed but there was nothing Sera could do and he knew that even if she tried her best to help find a stable job, he wouldn't be able to keep it. "I need somewhere flexible." He mumbled under his breath. "Could've asked Uriel to let me help manage his son's butcher shop but-"
"He's gone."
"Well, I guess I'm just meant to be an errand boy all my life."
"Maybe save up and open your own shop?"
"And sell what? I have no skills but being nosy."
Sera laughed. "I don't know, I've seen little cafés everywhere in the Capital, maybe you, Ayla and Cyrus could open one in the Foxhalo."
"Except the Capital is different from Five."
"I bet the people from Lux will love somewhere to lounge and eat but what do I know?" She glanced over at Oran and then back down, hoping he'd take the bait. "Did you get what I asked?"
Oran nodded, lost in his thoughts and took out a small canvas pouch. Tentatively, he held it up for her as lightning cracked in the background. He seemed hesitant to hand over the package, almost afraid of it but not afraid enough to get rid of it.
Without wasting a second, Sera made a motion to grab it with her left arm. Her right arm felt heavy and in pain but at the same time she ached to get her hands on the package.
"Be careful with this!" Oran warned quietly. "These are bellora seeds, I don't know why you asked me to find them but you're not thinking of growing these, are you?"
"Of course not. I was thinking of making medicine with them." She said with a soft smile that would always work on those Capitolites. A few sweet and kind words and a smile were all the poison she needed to get inside their heads.
Unfortunately, Oran wasn't like those silly Capitolites. Her childhood friend was more wary, an unfortunate side effect of his rough upbringing. "With t-these? Sera, b-bellora isn't something you make medicine—at least not that I know of."
"Exactly. You don't know much." Oran didn't know much but he knew enough which was such a shame for Sera. Most didn't know what bellora was. Most didn't grow up around her or her aunt. "...Talissa said that anything can be used in medicine and I have been practicing at the Capitol hospitals and clinics."
Oran was still hesitant. He didn't want to part with those seeds so easily, especially not after the effort he put in to get them at Sera's request. He didn't understand why she even made the request; Bellora wasn't easy to find. "But this is bellora." He tried to dissuade her again. "If it was possible to make medicine out of it, don't you think someone might've done it already?"
"You forget that bellora is hard to grow or find. There's a reason why I asked you to look for it in the mountains behind Nero—I'd do it myself but…you know, it's not easy making time with the way my schedule is set. I'm sorry I used you but I really needed this." She took a step forward under the shade as the storm raged on and resisted the urge to look at the watch on her wrist. She counted the time in her head until her family decided to come and find her. "I don't want to take, I want to give back and what better way than helping others."
"Yeah b-but this is bellora."
"Oran." Sera's patience was running thin as lightning crackled loudly and thunder boomed. "Have I ever done anything wrong? You know I would never hurt anyone…not when I have a choice."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
The smile on her face grew stiff and her eyes became colder. Ah. He thought she was going to try and…
She almost laughed at how overly cautious he was. Throwing away her life so easily. She wasn't Leora. If she was going to kill herself, she'd put a meaning to it, not die in some random corner of Panem.
"My sister spent most of my childhood trying to treat me, I'm not dumb or ungrateful enough to waste her efforts."
Sera glanced over at the cemetery where the mourners were making their way out. She didn't have much time. If Oran didn't hand over the seeds then she'd have to make the journey to the mountains herself or send Zephyr. Both options were terrible, she and Zephyr had too many eyes on her. Oran was the only one who she could rely on for this.
"...You know bellora is incredibly hard to grow. There's nothing on it in the Capitol and they know a lot." Oran nodded along to Sera's words. "Only some people in our district know about it and if I fail, I can always use them to study and find out more about it."
Reluctantly, Oran passed it to her but he still lingered around her after the handover. Sera pulled out a pouch of money from her purse and passed it to Oran. She left quickly before he asked any questions. He rarely did but she'd rather not take any chances.
"Where'd you go?" Ramiel jogged up to her with an umbrella tipped towards her. "You know Lissa would be furious if you caught a cold considering…" He trailed, not wanting to address the concern on his mind.
Sera sighed and quickly shoved the pouch into her purse. Her siblings were walking on eggshells around her just like they did with their aunt when she was still here. She looked up at her brother and smiled brightly, a genuine smile so different from the ones she was used to giving. "I'm fine." She said brightly.
But the moment those words left her mouth, her chest seized and air was knocked out of her lungs. Pain shot through her chest, blinding her. She saw red as the blood rushed to her head and her cheeks flushed a bright red. She clenched her fists, her nails digging into the palm of her hands, drawing blood as her vision blurred.
Her bandaged arm felt even more heavy than usual and it didn't help that Ramiel had grabbed onto it to steady her. She cursed under her breath at her brother even though the rational part of her knew it wasn't his fault. He didn't know. She'd never let him or anyone in her family know.
Her brother was at her side in an instant. With his prosthetic hand holding the umbrella and his uninjured hand holding her close to him, he tried his best to hold her as the waves of pain washed over her. He couldn't do much but look at his youngest sister with a teary helpless face.
His sharp breaths blew past her face and she snuggled close to her brother. It wouldn't be so bad if she just…
"I-I'm fine, I-uh-I just need a…minute." She managed to ground out despite the pain burning through her. She looked back at where the funeral was held. Uriel was probably laid to rest by now and Sera couldn't help but envy him.
Uriel was fortunate and Sera envied him.
Plant Dictionary
Willow - Mourning
Poppy - Consolation, Eternal Sleep
Author's Note: Ended part 2 with an execution and we're beginning part 3 with a funeral and a time skip.
Just another note, 'Bellora' isn't a real plant. I made it up and took inspiration from a couple real world plants.
