Chapter 32:

Tigris' heels clinked like claws against the parquet tile as she exited the bathroom. She didn't know what she was feeling. It was something like a dream and a nightmare rolled up into one in the way the crowd parted like a nervous school of rainbow fish to let the shark pass. She mirrored their expressions- raising her striped chin and turning her flat nose up at the people suddenly so appalled by her presence. With a confident stride and confused chromatifur coat, Tigris strutted out the Gallery and down into the Palace's moon baked rear gardens glowing with every color.

The coat reflected back the landscape garden's verdant topiary hedges and rows of multi-colored flower patches lining the winding path. Eventually, Tigris entered into a circular courtyard encompassing a large fountain bubbling with a crystalline geyser. A chalky pebbled path wrapped around the fountain's stone lip a full 360 degrees and led back out into the garden. Circular rows containing hundreds of white folding chairs were neatly arranged around the curved path. An empty seat in the front-most row was labeled with Tigris' name and a picture of a woman who looked nothing like the Animal that crossed to sit there.

She overheard their puzzled comments, recognizing her style but not her face as belonging to herself. Stage lights of undulating colors set up around the fountain began to dim to a soft fade as Lucky Flickerman stumbled into Tigris' view tapping his knuckle on the silver end of a microphone he held. After a scraping hiss of feedback replied to the taps, Lucky began slurring into the mic. So absorbed by Lucky's inebriated efforts to speak a full sentence, Tigris didn't notice the familiar chromatifur necktie wrapped around his shirt's collar at first.

"Wow… whatta' Games and…" Lucky stumbled while standing completely still as if a ghost nudged him. "We can have a drink again!"

Lucky hiccupped into the mic, swallowed a burp, and stared into the audience with half closed eyes for a long beat. He soon came back to reality, placing a shadowing hand over his brow to block the studio lights and scan over the crowd, muttering to himself:

"Now, where is she… Before the show starts, we should all hear from-"

Lucky caught sight of Tigris' feline features glaring back at him from the front row and choked out.

"...Tigris Snow?"

Tigris stood with her gaze downcast and crossed into the light beside him to accept the microphone; whereupon Lucky rushed away as if she truly were some wild predatory big cat. But she felt so much more like a lamb in that moment- standing alone in so many more ways than one. The crowd fell to a hush as Tigris lifted her new face, feeling the bright light's warmth shine over her golden stripes. At first, she thought only she could hear the pounding of her heart, but then realized it was being beaten into the microphone she held at her breast.

Everyone sat in disgusted silence listening to the percussive beating of Tigris' heart. No other part of her knew what to say it seemed. Her discomfort was palpable, and suddenly, Tigris felt inclined to force everyone to sit in it with her. As she looked over the crowd of expectant faces, the indecipherable language pounding out of Tigris' core began to make sense to her. And so she raised the microphone to her new face, and confessed:

"When I was a little girl, I'd wear my prettiest dresses to forget bombs were falling. I was taught to throw glitter at my problems- to style myself into someone great from the outside in. But the more I tried to design my image; I think my art and me were lesser for it. Because the truth is my sense of style and self was not born from glamor and glitz. It was born from war.

Fashion isn't about covering things up. Art is about revealing yourself. But I didn't discover that in my collection. I learned that long ago from a much more honest artist. A girl who turned her trauma into verse. She wore the world, in all its vibrant color and danger, on a rainbow ruffled sleeve. She sang when she could have screamed. Good art is life and death, relationships and memories, people and places, failures and victories. And good art doesn't die with you- no matter how they try to bury it.

I've never had the words to explain why I am the way I am- and I hoped I could design the feeling into something I could touch. And maybe I'll never quite find either and maybe that's just. This collection is my shining achievement, the greatest thing I will ever do, but I hope to everything it's nowhere near the most good." Tigris stood a bit straighter: "I don't know if I'm good. I don't know if those scales can ever be balanced again, but I do know that's not a reason not to try. Even if it's the last thing I ever do… even if it's in complete vain..."

Tigris finally pulled the trigger:

"Consider this: as a girl, I brought my best friend to be drugged and molested by Appius Volpe after years of enduring the same abuse. So, to counteract our misdeeds, your child-loving President has agreed to donate the proceeds from tonight's charity event to the families of child laborers murdered in the District 8 factory fires last-"

The mic went dead in Tigris' hand.

There was an incredibly long, awkward silence that permeated over the sea of blank expressions. Tigris' heart pounded. She stared into the crowd that she'd just dropped this bomb on. Gradually, the words settled on the Capitolites seated around Tigris. A wave of palpable derision, scorn, and revulsion flooded over the crowd. But Tigris knew immediately the audience's spite was not for their President- but for her. In an instant, the spotlight fell away and plunged everyone into shadows. Tigris dropped the mic to the white gravel path and crossed back to her seat as the anthem began to ring out with a blaring volume.

As soon as she sat, Zagros was coming around the bend of the fountain. He wore one of the chromatifur embellished suit jackets that Tigris had created for the line, clomping as modelesque as his rigid gait allowed. The two made eye contact as he passed by. The crowd 'oohed' at the way his coat lit up with veins of blue, purple, and green as Zagros offered Tigris a proud, aching grin. She watched him go- a heavy, tension building in her gut as Zagros disappeared around the fountain back into the garden. She was still straining her neck to get a last look at him when Ada Jane's vibrant colors stole everyone's attention.

Ada twirled with her dress' hues, giggling as she strutted down the runway next, the audience enthralled by the sweeping colors swirling at her hips. Tigris held the only scowl in the crowd, watching Ada milk every last skipping step she took until Margaret came through next. Tigris could tell Margaret had no idea what she was doing walking the runway but was making an effort to mimic Ada's posturing before her. However, it was clear to Tigris from the deep blue and icy white colors of Margaret's skirt that something was troubling her mind more than just stage fright. Lumen was next, and if Margaret's colors appeared afraid, the Victor from 5 had to be utterly petrified. Lumen's two-piece suit had the crowd in a frenzy, its explosions of blue and white lightning across his body so overwhelming Tigris had to squint to see the man's terrified expression through its glare. Woof entered next.

Seven certainly came before eight. Tigris hoped the reason for Silvi's absence wouldn't be the same as Talullah or November's- a concern that momentarily distracted her from the matte black color of Woof's clothing. His chromatifur vest didn't even look like chromatifur to Tigris- in fact, Woof didn't even look like Woof to Tigris. The young man's once inquisitive, pensive eyes were as expressionless as his outfit. And her bubbling sense of suspicion only deepened as the successive 'models' began to emerge onto the runway. Every person that walked out in Tigris' designs after Woof had been a member of Caracalla's cabinet. It was with an explosive clarity that Tigris realized- her collection was a trap.

She stood, breaking audience etiquette and further disgracing herself as she clamored around the fountain and back into the gardens. She was swallowed up by the small, shadowy canyons of hedges as the anthem's symphony seemed to swell in volume. Tigris chased after the Cabinet members in her designs attempting to warn them to disrobe. But, from the combination of the dark path, her frightening Animal features, and the blasting orchestral music- no one would hear her.

Tigris chased after the line of chromatifur-clad figures out the gardens and up the stairs back into the Palace, casting off her own lightning-covered trench coat to the tile as she entered the Great Hall. They all traveled towards the same place. And Tigris soon realized as she trailed them through a pair of wooden double doors and down a set of stairs baked in a candlelit glow where they were headed. Somehow, the symphony of the country's anthem echoed even louder within the basement Tigris descended into. And upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, she cried out in horror.

Dozens of candelabras and lamps were lit throughout the dusty basement- their flaming, metal arms practically reaching out to grab and incinerate the color-changing garbs passing by them. Everyone Tigris could see in her immediate vicinity wearing the fabric was completely oblivious to the danger they were literally in- most inexplicable: Woof. The young man sat on a wooden crate with the same dull expression Tigris had seen him display on the runway across his face and vest.

"Woof! Have you seen Zagros?!" Tigris rushed up and asked frantically, but the man had no reaction, let alone a response: "Woof!? You need to get out of here!"

Woof smacked his lips and chewed on nothing like thoughtless, barnyard cattle would- as if his brain had been scooped clean out of his head. A few yards away, Tigris caught sight of Ada Jane sliding her chromatifur dress off to the floor before strutting towards them in just her undergarments. Tigris watched Woof's eyes stay fixed firmly on the floor as Ada sauntered by half naked and slipped through a dusty, curtained alcove. Tigris began to unbutton Woof's vest for him- and even the young man's dead expression was momentarily captured by the thunderous vibrations of the massive doors at the top of the basement's stairs being drawn shut.

Tigris dashed back up the steps, finding the wooden doors at the top of the landing firmly shuddered, bolted, and locked. She bound back down, calling out for everyone to take off their garments. But no matter how Tigris hollered, no one could hear her over the timpani that underscored Appius Volpe's voice being pumped into the echoing chamber of the basement. As Appius' disembodied announcement began to list off his new Cabinet, Tigris found Margaret after dashing through the maze of antique furniture and wooden crates.

'Secretary of Sciences… Io Jasper.'

"Have you seen Zagros!?" Tigris asked over the orchestra pounding in her ears.

"He's down here somewhere!" Margaret replied.

'Secretary of Energies… Vipsania Sickle.'

"Take off the chromatifur, quick!" Tigris ordered and Margaret immediately began to pull off her clothing. "Where is Silvi?"

Margaret already grieved: "I haven't seen her since she left to get the poison to Gaul. I should have gone with her. I'm such a coward!"

'Secretary of Communications… Satyria Click.'

"We have to go!" Tigris urged: "The entire basement is going to blow any second. This way!"

Tigris hastily led Margaret through the basement towards one of its back corners. The ventilation grate on the wall Tigris had once escaped through was boarded up with planks of wood drilled into the wall.

'Secretary of Security… Goddard Nix.'

It took both women all their combined body weight to pry away just a single two by four. The pair fell back with the splintered wooden plank in hand. They rebounded, but as soon as their hands fell on the next plank to pull it away, it was instantly broken off towards them in their hands by a force from the other side. Tigris gasped as another plank beneath the one that had just snapped off came away with the same violent force and fell at their feet.

'Secretary of War… Hilarius Heavensbee.'

There was enough of an opening now to the darkened duct for a single eye within to reflect off of the candlelight of the basement. Then, Silvi clamored through the opening with a bulky messenger bag strapped over her shoulder.

'Secretary of Health… Lysistrata Vickers.'

Silvi raced away with Margaret in tow, leaving Tigris to face the pounding snaps and fissures of the remaining wooden planks covering the opening abruptly being bashed in further. Tigris leapt back and raced to a leaden, leather sofa nearby. As the wooden beams came free with cracking explosions of splinters, Tigris desperately attempted to push the sofa over the broken opening widening by the second, but it was too heavy for her to do alone.

'Secretary of Law… Faust Crane.'

Tigris suddenly felt she had the strength of a grown man when the sofa began to easily slide across the concrete floor. It wasn't until the weighty piece of furniture was successfully pressed against the opening that Tigris looked up to see Zagros at her side.

'Secretary of Agriculture… Messius Sulla.'

They threw their arms around instinctively, his chromatifur coat glowing vibrant purple as they embraced. She instantly pulled the coat off of Zagros, grabbed his hand and turned to pull him away.

'Secretary of Arts and Culture… Birrus Darning.'

Tigris stopped when she caught eight of Lucky stumbling out from a dusty, curtained alcove zipping up his fly and straightening the loosened and glowing yellow chromatifur tie around his neck. Lucky sighed satisfied, pulling a cigar out of his breast pocket and approaching a brightly burning candelabra nearby.

'Treasurer… Fedelia Lunt.'

He raised the end of the cigar to one of the open flames and allowed it to catch and burn into cinder.

'Vice President… Coriolanus Snow.'

Tigris shouted out to Lucky, who could not hear her warning over the thunderous applause that came through the speakers, tapping a dash of ash and ember from the tip of the cigar onto his necktie.

'BOOM!'

Lucky's head went one way, and his toupee went the other as the fabric around his throat detonated in an explosion of technicolor fire. Tigris was thrown back from the blast with Zagros. A wave of glimmering cold, multi-colored flame burst out and washed over the candelabra, which itself reacted as if it'd been doused in accelerant. Everything and everyone around the stand of candles, from old furniture to cabinet members, were then enveloped in real, burning orange flames. The triumphant applause and anthem blared over the screams of panic that began to spread as fast as the blaze itself. Through this, Tigris heard the sharp, splitting of wood behind her, twisting around to look down the barrel of the rusty metal contraption being pointed at Zagros.

A brief flash exited the barrel of the makeshift gun in the Animal's hand as Tigris tossed Zagros' chromatifur coat into the fired bullet's path- igniting an inferno that exploded over the gunman. Zagros dragged Tigris to her feet as the blast settled with falling embers like dying, rainbow fireflies around them. An outpouring of Animals holding handcrafted firearms and jagged, metal shanks began bursting out the broken open duct by the dozens, immediately murdering each and every chromatifur clad victim as they found them. Zagros shielded Tigris from the unfolding massacre with his body as the two sought cover from the gun blasts, explosions, and fire.

Margaret came back into Tigris' view attempting to carry both the bulky shoulder bag and a half conscious Silvi on her back- who was suffering from a heavily bleeding chest wound. Margaret collapsed under Silvi as she was tackled to the floor by a reptilian Animal woman wielding a scrap metal dagger. Margaret cried out, throwing one protective arm over Silvi and laboring to heave the bag off her shoulder that she dispensed with a 'clang' at the Animal woman's feet. The lizard woman stooped down and pulled open a flap of the bag, peering inside with widening neon eyes. The Animal snatched up the bag by the strap and raced away, leaving Margaret to weep over Silvi and begin chest compressions against the woman's stiff bloodstained torso.

Tigris pulled away from Zagros and raced towards the pair of women- but Margaret lashed out wrathfully at her:

"She was right!" Margaret glowered into Silvi's glossy, dead eyes and buried her weeping face against the woman's still, bloody chest and released a muffled scream of anger. Then, she rose up with her wrathful features dripping red, raging at Tigris. She shoved her violently with bloodied hands: "There's no graceful way out of this!"

Zagros pulled Tigris back at the same moment the platinum knife sank into his chest.

Tigris saw a flash of Lumen releasing the hilt of the blade then whizzing off in a blur as Zagros fell into her. Tigris tried to catch his body with her own, but Zagros had a solid hundred pounds on her. He clearly knew this, and despite the knife's blade possibly nipping into his heart, Tigris could tell the man was desperately fighting his body's urge to outright collapse. Propping him up on her hip, Tigris found a small refuge for herself and Zagros within an arrangement of yet unburnt, antique bookshelves and grandfather clocks. She squinted through the darkness to examine Zagros' wound, the knife protruding from an expanding stain on his chest.

"Do we need to take it out-"

"No!" Zagros hastily denied the request through gritted teeth before she could finish it: "I'll bleed out if you-"

The sentence was interrupted by a flash of fire from beyond their hiding space. Tigris peered back out into the carnage desperately racking her mind for a path out of the massacre unfolding around her. Just then, she was confronted with a set of rectangular pupils staring back at her- the bearded Animal man's horns almost crashing into Tigris' feline face as he stepped back, examined her, then promptly shoved her a rusted shiv into her hand.

The realization she was an Animal finally struck Tigris. She took a step out from her cover with the shiv as the piercing screams, tinny gunshots, fiery explosions, and orchestral symphony all echoed off the burning walls of the basement. Only one step more and she noticed Woof still sat with the same blank expressions and blank unbuttoned chomatifur vest handing off his slouched posture. Tigris took off towards the catatonic man to pull him out of the open, watching as Woof's chromatifur was licked by the flames of a nearby explosion.

Tigris expected Woof to be sent flying through the air in flaming pieces like the putrid colored lizard woman who came raining down with an explosion's embers a few feet away. But, instead- Woof's blank expression and black, chromatifur vest stayed reactionless to the fire. The smoldering limbs of the lizard woman on the floor reclaimed Tigris' attention, most glaringly the hint of metal and wire peeking out of the bloodied satchel that had been blown off along with the dead Animal's scaly, disembodied arm. Tigris sped over to the bag lying on its side and pulled the flap open entirely to reveal the bomb.

It looked identical to the one that had leveled Whatknots, albeit, with a few more busted bulbs and loose screws. Tigris glanced back through the massacre- the exit at the top of the stairs still bolted shut. Tigris' shaking hands hovered over the broken bomb. She unflinchingly began prodding at buttons and tugging on wires that protruded from the device, but it refused to wake no matter how Tigris fiddled with it. She raised her fist to punch the unresponsive bomb in an effort to force it to blow- but another, severely burned and manicured hand fell on it first.

The bubbling, raw flesh and charred, exposed tendons of the hand that gripped a red wire coiling out from the bomb was one of the most revolting things Tigris had ever seen. She watched the fingers rip the red wire free, then immediately plug it back into the same recess it'd been plucked from. The bomb's little bulbs came blinking on. Tigris looked up to see their blood-colored glow sputter across what was left of Ada's face peering back at her, half melted and burned away to the bone of her skull. Her long blond curls were smoking straw sticking out from her scorched, bare scalp, her smooth even skin was shredded with ripples of red and black discoloration, her bright blue eyes full of remorse.

Ada allowed a deep heave to break from her smoke-filled lungs as she hoisted the live bomb into her frail, burnt grip and began heaving the device up the basement's stairs. Tigris turned and raced to where Zagros was hidden, diving over his bleeding body just as the world detonated around them. The tremendous blast funneled itself back down the staircase and sent out a violent wave of hot air that tore almost everything in the basement to smithereens, including the exit.

Tigris lifted her head and strained to see through the dust, ash, and quiet settling around her. She assumed she was dead until she felt Zagros stir beneath her. She searched in vain for the shiv, but it was lost among the debris. Tigris helped pull Zagros from the rubble and began limping with him towards the golden glow of light filtering into the basement down over the stone and splintered waterfall of concrete and wood flowing down the stairs. Tigris and Zagros climbed up the craggy incline of boulders and broken wooden beams until they were crawling into the open air of the Palace's rear Gallery, the Animals who had also survived the blast close behind.

Tigris practically drug Zagros down the empty Gallery towards the Great Hall. She planned to make for the front exit of the Palace once there but was met with the entirety of the country's military arsenal as she rounded the corner. A platoon of Peacekeepers had their rifles aimed at the Animals as they came tearing into the Great Hall a second later. Tigris could hear nothing but gunfire, whistling bullets, and dying screams as those around her began to be mowed down one by one. Some were torn to shreds by the gunfire, while others managed to back into the Gallery or race forward out the Great Hall's rear exit into the gardens.

Tigris found herself and Zagros in the latter group racing down the Palace's back steps after being lucky enough to be spared by the first barrage of gunfire. Pops of intermittent rifle blasts sounded off at her back as Tigris led Zagros down the steps. Other Animal's at her side were being struck and sent tumbling down the marble stairs like bloodied ragdolls. The pair made it into the dark cover of the moon baked landscape gardens flowery hedges. Zagros slurred something into Tigris' ear she couldn't decipher, and lost consciousness, slumping to his knees just as the pair made it to the garden's central fountain.

Tigris lowered Zagros to the gravel path where white folding chairs of the fashion show were strewn about like a storm had just ripped through. She raced towards the fountain's shallow pool, scooped up a handful of water she intended to wake Zagros with, but turned back only to be tackled into the fountain. Tigris saw the distorted face through the water she was being drowned under- the wrathful pink expression, snarling black beak of a mouth, and the vengeful yellow eyes refracting into a nightmarish harpy. Mavis' image began to be peripherally clouded by oxygen deprivation, then completely by a literal cloud of blood that splashed down a moment later.

Mavis' grip went limp, releasing her lock on Tigris' shoulders. The sensation of weight on Tigris was ripped away before she herself was being plucked from beneath the water's surface. The air rushed back into her lungs only to be pulled right back out upon looking at Zagros' bloodless face. The knife that had been embedded in his heart was now in his trembling fist- dripping with Mavis' blood. Zagros tried to guide Tigris out of the fountain, but was already suffering from such substantial blood loss he could hardly take a step before stumbling over the bloody water at his knees. Tigris refused to let go of his arm and went splashing down with him.

"Zagros, get up, honey!" Tigris begged. Zagros' eyelids fluttered, staring up at the deep navy night sky above. "Please-"

"I see it." Zagros murmured.

Tigris began to cry- "We need to go. We need to get out of here."

"It's so pretty." A small smile formed into the corner of Zagros lips as echoing gunshots persisted in the distance.

"Zagros- we have to go. You have to get me out of here." Tigris pleaded as she cradled his head in her hands, the darkening cloud of red expanding over her lap. She cried: "Zagros- I told you this would happen! I told you! I am so sorry-"

"It's blue. I see it, I see it." Zagros laughed. "It's beautiful." He stared up at the midnight navy sky before his gaze lowered on Tigris: "Thank you." Zagros grimaced in pain and willed a smile again for Tigris that remained there once his eyes died fixed on her.

Tigris buried her face in his chest and cried so hard, she didn't hear Lucy's voice until the end of the first line:

'You're headed for heaven, the sweet old hereafter…'

She raised her chin to the song being played over the Palace's PA system.

'…And I've got one foot in the door.'

Tigris looked back down at Zagros' glassy eyes staring up at her and the heavens. She closed them, kissed them, then took the knife from his stiff grip.

'But, before I can fly up, I've loose ends to tie up right here in the old therebefore.'

Tigris stepped out from the fountain and began stealing back into the gardens towards the peppering of gunfire coming from the Palace. She'd expected to be shot dead upon emerging from the gardens at the base of the rear steps. Instead, all Tigris was met with as she climbed the staircase was bullet ridden bodies of both Animals and Capitolites and another of Lucy's verses echoing down over her:

'I'll be along when I've finished my song. When I've shut down the band. When I've played out my hand…"

Tigris cautiously stepped into the Great Hall through the shattered glass of its rear doors- a hazy, smoke-filled cavern where the only people she saw were dead at her feet. It was only a moment later when Lumen sprinted into the Hall with a bloodied face and panting breaths, pursued by a trio of shank wielding Animals.

'…When I've paid all my debts, when I have no regrets right here in the old therebefore.'

As Lumen made it to the opening of the Banquet Hall, he tripped and went slamming down to the floor on his stomach, knocking the wind from himself. Tigris watched the man scream in terror as the Animals seized and pinned him to the floor.

"Stop!" Tigris shouted.

The trio of Animals looked over their shoulders at Tigris, who gripped the knife that had killed Zagros in her hand as she requested:

"Let me have this one."

The Animals looked at each other, considering Tigris' offer before the sounds of a rifle blast not far off helped inform their decision to abandon Lumen to her mercy. They shoved the Victor from 5 against the Banquet Hall doors and dashed off out the Great Hall as Tigris crossed towards the quivering man lying on the floor. Lumen winced as Tigris stabbed the knife into the wooden door beside his head, commanding with a furious roar:

"GO HOME!"

Lumen let a blood-soaked tear fall down his face, blinking uncomprehendingly at Tigris with grim comprehension, before pulling himself to his feet and scrambling away as instructed. She watched him go, noticing a spot on the floor that lit up an electric white puddle of light as Lumen ran by and out the front doors of the Palace. Tigris ripped the knife back out from the door.

'I'll catch you up when I've emptied my cup…'

Tigris walked up to the white puddle as it faded, then watched it reignite with blue and red as she approached it. She picked up her chromatifur trench coat from the floor, sliding its troubled colors over her shoulders and deposited the platinum knife in its pocket.

'…When I've worn out my friends, when I've burnt out both ends…'

Tigris took a deep breath, calming the vibrancy of her coat's hues as she began climbing a set of velvet carpeted stairs to the upper floors of the Palace.

'…When I've cried all my tears, when I've conquered my fears, right here in the old therebefore.'

Gunshots and screams still pierced through the Palaces halls but Tigris felt nothing other than a predatory vengeance as she stalked towards the swan song she was sure was luring in her prey, as well.

'When nothing is left anymore…'

Tigris had always wondered where Lucy had gone, knowing full well it wasn't anywhere she could touch. But now, Tigris felt like she was there with her, listening to the girl's voice again as if she were by her side, ushering her towards the Cabinet Room with the song.

'…I'll bring the news when I've danced off my shoes. When my body's closed down, when my boat's run aground. When I've tallied the score and I'm flat on the floor. Right here, in the old therebefore...'

Tigris reached the door- her hand hovering over the crystal knob. She gripped and twisted it open.

'When nothing is left anymore...'

She stepped inside the Cabinet Room, where Goneril seemed far more taken aback by Tigris' presence than vice versa.

"I wasn't expecting that Snow." Goneril expressed with stunned ire from the seat behind the President's desk, slightly lowering the home-made firearm she held. Her crown of golden, coiled hair glowed from the fireplace and mounted television on its mantle at her back. "You shouldn't be alive."

Tigris' eye's snapped between Goneril setting a shining, new rotary phone lying on the desk back on its receiver and Appius sitting alone at the round table before a ceramic kettle and pair of teacups. President Volpe finally looked his age as he strained to rise and slog towards the desk, using a handheld remote to pause Lucy Gray's singing, snake-covered image on the television screen above the crackling mantle.

"I know." Tigris replied to Goneril as Coriolanus burst into the room.

The first face he saw was Tigris'. Coriolanus violently threw her to the floor, having mistaken her for just any other Animal. He pressed the silver revolver to the underside of her stripped chin. It wasn't until he heard her shaking breaths and saw the familiar golden-brown colors of her eyes staring back at him that Coriolanus recognized her:

"Tigris?" He was revolted: "You're hideous."

He looked up, seeing both Goneril's weapon and Lucy's still image being directed back at him. Coriolanus sprang to his feet, pointing his revolver at both. Tigris used the round table to lift herself back up, finding herself standing over the tea set.

Coriolanus held the gun on Goneril, his eyes flitted sideways to Tigris. "What did you do to her?"

"I fear it's…" Goneril replied with a strange, grim snarl: "…of very little consequence."

Tigris stared down at her 'hideous' reflection in the steaming surface of a filled teacup. She squeezed the end of her chromatifur sleeve between her palm and fingers until she felt the fabric fissure, pop, and tingle in her grip- holding out her fist to watch her reflection be cut into ripples with the drop of black venom that fell from her knuckle into the cup.

"What do you mean?" Coriolanus asked Goneril suspiciously.

"I have everything I need to take control." Goneril pulled out her mother's black notebook with her free hand and swatted it on the desk, leveling with Coriolanus. "I know who you are. And all your poisonous, little tricks."

"You do?" Coriolanus asked, regripping his revolver tighter.

"I know you're one of a Cabinet full of murderers." Goneril frowned at him. "And I know now how you've been killing and controlling your enemies." Goneril turned to Appius, lifting an eyebrow at him: "Pour Mr. Snow some tea."

The President's face didn't not emote much of anything upon removing a small, glass vial of black liquid from his coat pocket and crossing towards Tigris seated at the table before the tea set. Goneril explained:

"I know how much Manticore plasma it takes to kill a man…"

Tigris watched Appius uncork and dump the vial's contents into the teacup beside the one Tigris had laced with the drop of venom.

"…And how much it takes to hijack one." Goneril continued.

Appius' hand passed over the cup he'd poisoned and picked up the one before Tigris. President Volpe dragged his feet back to the desk where he sat the steaming teacup of dark liquid down before Coriolanus as Goneril finished:

"It's all over. I have the President and the Palace at the mercy of my Animals but none of that matters, truly. With what's in this book- the people will tear you to shreds when they find out when they find out who you really are." Goneril eyed the teacup between them. "Coriolanus, your life is a lie. I'm giving you the chance to end it on your own terms."

Coriolanus looked down at the cup and studied Goneril. After a short beat, he set aside the silver revolver, picked the teacup up by its gold inlaid handle with the gentle pinch of two fingers, raised its rim to his lips and took a sip. Goneril's eyes widened as she relaxed her grip on her homemade firearm.

"You know what your mother always said about you?" Coriolanus asked Goneril, setting the teacup back down with a refreshed exhale. Goneril tilted her head, but immediately dropped her chin when Coriolanus disclosed with a flippant shrug: "Nothing."

Goneril's face went whiter and whiter as Coriolanus' complexion stayed seemingly cool and unsullied by both her and the poison's efforts to wither him.

"You have always been inconsequential. Then and now- you don't have the hand you think you do." Coriolanus smirked. "You don't know your army hardly made it out of the sewers, let alone into the Palace. And my own army easily took care of the handful that didn't manage to get incinerated by a… 'rainbow of destruction.'"

Coriolanus smacked his lips as Goneril vibrated with an emotion Tigris couldn't discern, vibrating with such tangling inner conflicts she seemingly forgot the solution she held in her hand.

"You don't understand..." Goneril's brow furrowed with intense contemplation, her weapon's aim wilting with her.

"You don't." Coriolanus eyed the steaming teacup between them. "Maybe you know a drop or more is all it takes to kill a room of grown men. And less than half a drop to hijack that same amount." Coriolanus sat back. "But, you don't know how much is needed to inoculate yourself so as to be immune entirely."

"No…" Goneril shook her head and fixated past him on Tigris. "It's all a lie."

"I've only ever told you the truth, Gaul." Coriolanus mocked.

"No!" Goneril stood with embittered despair: "You don't understand!" Her lost, suddenly child-like magenta eyes glistened with tears as they focused on Tigris at the round table, who began pulling the poisoned teacup before her closer: "The prey ate the predator without pain. We were lied to, Coriolanus. You can survive this world without killing it." Goneril was near catatonic with the epiphany. "You think you're safe from my mother's poison? No, Coriolanus. I think it already killed us long, long ago. Volumnia was wrong."

"She was not." Coriolanus insisted.

"She was! And you know how I know it's all a lie?" Goneril pointed a trembling finger over Coriolanus head at Tigris pulling the teacup to her lips:

"She's still here."

Goneril's fingers finally remembered what they held. She took aim and fired. The teacup exploded in Tigris' hand. Coriolanus flinched, instinctively shooting back- the bullet flying over Goneril's shoulder and striking the television behind her.

The shattered screen hissed- Lucy Gray's still, silent image stuttering with a flickering bullet hole radiating out from the rainbow ruffled breast of her dress.

Goneril glowered at Tigris, reached out, and snatched up the teacup on the desk- downing the rest of its contents in one gulp. She slammed it back down so forcefully the ceramic shattered in her fist over the television remote, inadvertently pressing its play button.

'When I'm pure like a dove… '

A black tear slid down her pale, scarred cheek to the carpet before Goneril followed it to the floor, collapsing under her own weight, dead.

'…when I've learned how to love. Right here…'

Appius didn't take a second look at Goneril's corpse- crossing to the television where Lucy's broken picture wrestled with the dying screen as it sang out the song's final line:

"In the old therebefore… where nothing is left-"

Lucy Gray's fissured face and fading voice were gone in the blink of an eye, the screen going black and mute as Appius removed the tape marked '10' from the VHS player and unceremoniously tossed it into the roaring fireplace. With a passive exhale, the President dryly reminded Coriolanus as he crossed towards the exit:

"The next Cabinet Meeting is this Wednesday at 7."

Appius gave Tigris a knowing glance as he departed, and there was a long, silent stillness after the door shut behind him. Coriolanus took a deep breath, turning over his shoulder to examine Tigris sitting at the round table. He stood and slowly paced around the Presidential desk to examine Goneril's body on the floor. Coriolanus held out his silver revolver, aimed it downward, and fired. The smile that spread across his lips only widened as Coriolanus lowered himself into the seat behind the desk with the golden red flames at his back, aiming the gun's barrel at Tigris, now. She slipped her hands into her pockets, feeling the knife's cold, serrated edge.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you?" Coriolanus asked.

"Goneril was wrong." Tigris replied. "I didn't make it through this innocently."

She gripped the blade's hilt.

"Do it." Tigris requested. "Kill me."

Coriolanus blinked at Tigris and appeared to struggle with her unflinching forwardness. His hesitation made something snap in her:

"Come on, you asked: 'why shouldn't you?!'" Tigris reminded him. "Don't send someone else to do it. Kill me, right now." Tigris stood and drew the knife from her pocket. "I cannot live with myself after this! I can't have love, or make art, or even step outside without feeling like an animal!" Tigris hurled the blade at the floor, then followed it down herself, collapsing in defeat: "Just kill me… because I can't."

Coriolanus looked down at Tigris without pity or derision. He showed no spite, but also no empathy, no bitterness or compassion. He merely clicked his tongue against his teeth, lowered the gun to the desk, and asked:

"What kind of punishment gives you what you want?"

Tigris sniffled through her flattened nose as Coriolanus asked further:

"And who would design Zizania's victory dress if I did?"

Tigris shook. "I want nothing to do with the Games anymore."

"For a loser, you really sound like a Victor." Coriolanus snorted. "And for those that are left, this year's mentoring experiment only proves to me that I must own every summer they'll get until the day they die."

"I can't do it. You'd have to scramble my brain with your poison." Tigris rejected. "Have your Secretary of Arts make the dress."

"You've seen what the hijacking process did to Darning's designs." Coriolanus revealed. "And I'll be needing your skills for more than just a Victory dress."

"I never want to stitch a single thread of clothing ever again."

"What a waste." Coriolanus tittered. "Considering Livia left her shop to you in her will."

"She…?" Tigris trailed off in disbelief.

"When she woke up for the last time, Livia admitted taking the book from the safe." Coriolanus explained.

"Why would she do that?" Tigris asked.

"Take the book or lie about it?" Coriolanus asked in turn. "You know what she told me to tell you right before she died?" Coriolanus began to ask, then revealed: "'Tell Tigris: 'she was the better designer.'"

"I don't want the shop."

"You'll need it. Like I'll need you." Coriolanus replied, eying the knife on the floor. "I don't need to kill you, cuz. You already are dead." He sat forward and clasped his hands together. "Your life is about to be very lonely. You won't have a family or big circle of friends. But, you'll have a Career. You'll have your shop." He ordered. "You'll have your art. You'll have your life. But you don't get a say in how you use them, understand? If I ask for a dress for Zizania, you'll ask: 'how big?' And if I say I want to redesign the Peacekeeper's uniforms now that I'm the Vice President, you'll ask…?"

Tigris sighed:

"What color?"

"I was thinking white is right." Coriolanus smiled at her.

Tigris eyed him for a long beat:

"Congratulations, Corio." She turned to leave. "I always knew you'd end up here."

"I'll need that dress before the end of the week." Coriolanus called after her. "I'll get you the fabric. How much do you want for a ballgown?"

"I don't want money." Tigris hissed over her shoulder as her hand gripped the crystal doorknob.

"Me-ow." Coriolanus mocked her in return.

A lightbulb went off in Tigris' mind where she thought she'd never find light again.

"I don't need money." Tigris rephrased.

Coriolanus snickered, kicking his feet up on the Presidential Desk:

"Then, what on earth else?"