Blood Red Roses

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(This is the song I was saving and as I said, if I used it before that is a fuck up, I was never meant to... The song from the Ballad of Songbirds, The Song of Lucy Gray Baird, the woman Snow saw in the words, in the movements, in the eyes of Bera. The one woman to outplay him until now.)


It was a hard few following days.

Locked in the sterile room and unable to see anyone to be sure no infection would kill the rest of her because yes, she was now aware of how fucked up she is, they had to cut out a part of her lung that refused to cooperate and be alive because of the scaring and tearing, yes tearing, she caused to it... To be sure the rest of it doesn't collapse again she has literal staples in a part of it as weird as it sounds.

And even when she was freed.

They were in the mansion of Snow it turned out, from here the smoking Capitol was still heard and seen, the popping of fires that still weren't able to be put out.

She was walking around this over the top mansion, going outside to be hit by the cold, why couldn't she find anyone around.

She was walking in the icy gravel and her breath was coming out in puffs of white but she was not that cold in her district 13 outfit even like this.

"Bera!" She looked up... Just Paylor, well she is happy sure but she wanted to find someone else.

"Paylor." She greeted but less enthusiastically then the woman. "Have you seen where the others are?"

"In the grand library, there will be a meeting there soon and all victors are asked to head there."

"Grand library, I get you... And like, why are men guarding a rose hothouse?" She pointed at it.

"Snow is kept in there."

So he wasn't killed? She didn't ask about it but she thought Potato had merked him, seems like she didn't.

"Can I go in? I'd love a few words with him."

"No hurting him, Coin wants to show his end to the public of Panem if so goes the meeting later."

"I'll be nice." Bera put her hands in her pockets. "I'll only speak."

"Than go right ahead."


Inside the dome it was indeed hot, the air damp but not in the same way as the sewers had been, this was even more sicking as the smell of roses was everywhere.

"I never thought you'd come see me miss Helfir." Snow said sitting at a little table and tending to a potted rose bush in a burgundy suit.

"I think I needed to look at you one last time." As she didn't have as much to say as she thought.

"I got to applaud you miss Helfir." He put the little scissors down. "You played this game magnificently, might I say I am almost proud."

She did a false bow, both knowing she didn't mean it.

"Oh how you remind me of someone you know? Just as cunning, just as tricky, just as surprising... And I do believe you are her revenge."

"I am the revenge of all those that died at your hands, I am the vengeance of the 1678, of the people you killed outside the game, the people you killed in secret, the vengeance of the districts you blew up, extinguished. It was my honor to help in your downfall president Snow."

"And it was a lovely game to play with you miss Helfir."

"If I might, it was not you was it? You are a monster but not wasteful, not with the lives of your people."

"Ah the bombs, indeed it was not me, I'd never hurt my people's children."

"Yeah because the district will never be your people and our children doesn't matter."

"This is war, no side is in the good."

"But one of them was in the evil... Goodbye Snow, for my spear shall claim your head soon."

"I'll await our final confrontation."


------------------------------------------------


Cashmere, Gloss, Enobaria, Lyme, Beetee, Finnick, Annie, Johanna, Bera, Cecelia, Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch. (Lyme is a victor of 2 and the woman planning the bombing of 2 in the movie, she is dead by the end since she is not in the circle of alive victors, she is alive purely to have an impair number of victors)


Thirteen.


There were only thirteen victors left alive in the whole of Panem, enough to have one victor per district... That's so little.

This was a gut punch to Katniss, to realize so few people still were here with a pain they all shared, being victors.

She sat next to Hymitch.

"So we've gathered here to decide on the fate of our enemies." Coin said. "People demand blood and bloodshed will never stop if we give in. So to calm the people I have named myself interim president of Panem."

"And how long will that last?" Haymitch asked with a scoff.

"It is too early to tell. Anyhow, I thought of a last symbolic hunger games to spill the blood that needs to be before putting an end to it."

Silence.

0-0

"Are you telling us you want a hunger games with the Capitol's children?" Johanna asked with a laugh. "Well yes, Snow has a granddaughter."

Yes                                  .1-0                                  No

"No! We can't keep this up, we fought to put an end to this, not revamp it to our sauce." Peeta said.

1-1

"I agree with Peeta, this needs to stop." Beetee said.

"But the Capitol should suffer like we did." Cashmere spoke up. "1 want retribution." She spoke for Gloss who was still tied up

3-2

"But kids? Once again kids? No, never, neither of us." Annie said for Finnick who nodded, still on the weaker side but still present.

3-4

"Well 2 wants reimbursement, we vote yes, both." Lyme said. Bera didn't expect anything else from Enobaria but she wished she got to talk to her before this.

5-4

"I disagree, no kid deserves to die." Bera hissed. "They might have destroyed 8, 12 and even 13 and other district but we can't be like them." (I realize not a single victor of mine would ever say yes willingly, Athena will be the only one to actually say the word yes and only because Katniss wanted her too.)

"I am with her." Cecelia said too.

5-6

"Now only Haymitch and the mockingjay remain."

"I get to kill Snow." A cold and distance Katniss said.

"Of course you do."

"Than I vote yes, for Prim."

6-6

"Haymitch?"

"I... I'm with the mockingjay." He cleared his throat.

7-6

"Great, than it is decided, I'll announce it to the people after Snow's execution, meeting dismissed."

And finally, even if Bera didn't expect it to be that fast, finally this was over and she could finally chat with her. Barely having had the time to turn away from the  table and stand to have Enobaria almost knock her over in a hug she gave back for once.

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