Chapter Text
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much—” He stopped himself. Coriolanus was appalled at his mouth for letting the words begin to slip through. He’d grown adept at playing close the chest, finely crafting all small talk to position himself as clever, charming, and above all sophisticated. The sentence he’d caught and choked on expressed such plebian thoughts that he hardly recognized them. Yet, they’d fallen out anyway.
Fortunately, the party was packed and tipsy and abuzz with likely far more foolish conversation. Unfortunately, the young woman beside him was smiling over her drink.
“Food?” She finished the embarrassing statement with her eyebrows raised. He quickly glanced around, but no one was near enough to their perch against the wall to have heard. He’d have to dive back in, soon. The moment of reprieve had turned dangerous, and he began to plot his escape.
“That certainly surprises,” Her tone turned low. At least she had enough tact to keep such conversations to a whisper, but not enough to drop the matter entirely. “I thought you attended these garish things at least weekly?”
“As ever, I can’t tell if your hyperbole is a compliment, Kallisto,” He hid his discomfort beneath a humble smirk. “The last time I was invited to an event at the presidential palace was graduation.”
“Yet suddenly you Gamemakers are VIPs in any room you set foot in,” She sniffed and finished her posca. “Doors are opening all across the Capitol for you, begging you to enter.”
“I like to think we’ve evolved in such a way that our use extends beyond that of the gam—”
“You, Snow. Not the others. The world is opening for you. And everyone here knows it.”
He looked out over the throng in the courtyard, framed through pillared arches. This was his favorite part of parties; after bouncing like a spider from one twitching fly to the next, tasting introductions and information and making the necessary connections in his web to ensnare larger, juicer rewards…he liked to step back. He liked to see from a distance how all the self-important people awkwardly scrambled to make impressions and convince themselves that happiness came from food, drink, costumes, and music. He loved to see them trapped.
“I thought it was supposed to be a surprise,” He murmured, turning to look at her for the first time since he’d joined her. “How did you find out?”
“That the president is planning to announce his successor tonight? Or that it’s going to be you?” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. Perhaps she enjoyed the show of parading Capitol elite as much as he did. “You’re not the only one who gets to know secrets.”
“Your father shouldn’t be spreading rumors.”
“Maybe I just guessed and you just confirmed.”
He rolled his tongue in his cheek and gave her an appraising look, which she finally returned.
“If what you’re suggesting is true,” He said silkily. “Perhaps I ought to be associating with attendees of a higher caliber for the rest of the night. Perhaps ones with less loose lips.”
“Might I remind you it was you who sought me out, I never asked to be part of your social rounds.”
“My offer still stands to go find a dark corner somewhere…”
“We’re not at University anymore,” She chastised. There had been a time when she’d been more susceptible to his advances. But then, she’d just been a pastime. A plaything. Now, she was rubbing the same elbows as he. “Reputations and all that. Are you still dating the Cardew girl? I thought I saw her earlier…”
“You’ve finished your studies, then?” He asked, keen to avoid the topic of his love life. Or, lack-of-love life. He’d only just been able to give the Cardews the slip, drawn into a monotonous conversation about agriculture. Livia was a decent partner, but her family’s influence was beginning to wane. They were old money, and his world would be a brave, new one. “My congratulations.”
“Thanks. It’s right into the lab for me. My dad was pleased, said Pharma could always use more researchers and my brothers are the more natural salesmen—Ah, yeah. There they go. He’s just introduced Romulus to Strabo Plinth.”
He followed her eyes to one of the buffet tables where indeed Mr. Plinth was being clapped on the back by a silver haired gentleman with thick black glasses, his other hand on the shoulder of a shorter, younger man with a nervous smile.
“I’m not sure that’s an ideal alliance,” He said quietly.
“It worked for you, didn’t it?” She sighed. “I don’t pretend to know about business. I only care how my work helps people.”
“Helps them so much they can’t live without it, right?”
She frowned. He knew he’d stepped over the line, but the drink had gone to his head, and he was feeling giddy and bold.
“The Morphling pill was specifically developed to deter addiction—”
“I’ve heard it all before. From you and your father. I get it. You deal in safety.”
“I deal in mental health, okay? In alleviating pain and fear. Say what you will about my family’s company, but at the end of the day we have the people’s best interests at heart. They know that. Ravinstill knows that. And you’d do well to remember that when you ascend your throne.”
“That may be true,” He admitted.
“Please tell me that’s not Dr. Gaul making her way over here,” She said suddenly.
“You’re still afraid of her? You’re not a student, you know, she can’t hurt you,” He almost laughed at her as she slid across the wall towards the corner for a quick escape.
“I’m gonna sneak away to the bath—nope, we’ve made eye contact. It’s over. Please do all the talking.”
“Dr. Gaul, you remember Kallisto Capp from University?” He stretched out an arm to welcome his mentor into their club. “She and I were just reminiscing fondly about one of your classes.”
Gaul hardly acknowledged Kallisto as she leaned closer to his ear.
“Mr. Snow, I believe the Flickermans were eager to have a word with you.” It wasn’t a command, but she said it as such. He didn’t let his face show his disappointment, but she sensed it anyway. “There’s not a single family here you can get away with not speaking to. You’ll need them all.”
Yes, an argument could be made that every prominent family needed to be secured in his pocket. He had special plans for the Flickermans, what they could do with the media, but he hadn’t quite gotten comfortable talking to entertainment folk. Even the vapid Lucky Flickerman, with likely so little going on beneath the surface, made him nervous.
“Excuse me a moment, will you?” He flashed Kallisto a kind smile, to which she responded with a wide-eyed look of horror as he left her alone with her least favorite teacher.
When he returned, he didn’t expect to find Dr. Gaul still beside her, nor did he expect the old woman to be delightedly engrossed while Kallisto cowered, hardly trying to conceal her furrowed brow.
“…survival of the fittest is hardly a game worth watching, I quite agree!” Gaul was saying. “Survival of the luckiest, that’s more reflective of our natural battle in the real world and ultimately more captivating. Uncertainty draws attention. But your suggestion to take the uncertain threats in the arena to another level is worth mulling.”
“I wasn’t really suggesting…anything…” Kallisto’s glassy eyes found him and begged for an intervention. He stood silently at Gaul’s shoulder, and when she turned, her knowing smile regarded him as though he’d been there the entire time.
“You should’ve spoken up more in class, Miss Capp,” Dr. Gaul stepped aside to take her leave. “Who knows what we could’ve accomplished?”
“As I recall, you didn’t typically like what I had to say,” Kallisto replied coldly.
“Yours is a soft science, but only because those who wield it tend to be so soft-minded. You mumble and bumble, but I do see you a bit clearer now. Much more like your father than I thought. Perhaps Mr. Snow will have better luck utilizing your talents than I did,” She looked between the two of them. “I’ll find you later.” Within moments, her purplish gray hair bounced out of sight.
“She better not find me later,” Kallisto muttered the moment she was out of earshot.
“She was talking to me,” Coriolanus narrowed his eyes but smiled slightly. “She wants to be seen at my side when…you know, when the time comes.”
“Of course. I say what I will about the woman, but she’s earned her due credit. You were her greatest creation, after all.”
“Am I to receive no credit of my own?”
“You posed well for the cameras.”
He debated finding a new conversation partner, but the reason he’d come to her in the first place was still entirely relevant: he was tired. He’d lost count long ago of how many parties he’d attended, how much inadvertent and intentional campaigning he’d done, how many names and looks of distaste he’d memorized.
“What did you say to her to make her smile like that?” He asked.
“I kissed ass, told her how lovely she looked, positively flirted—”
“If you don’t tell me, she will.”
Kallisto sighed through pursed lips and rested her head against the wall. Her dark hair was slicked back and knotted in a tight, crimped bow. At the University she’d usually worn her hair down, even though she’d complain about it getting stuck in her mouth.
“She asked what I thought of the Games this year,” She said. “Surely seeking praise on your behalf, I bet that’s been her opener with most of these fine folk this evening. And I gave it to her, sure. The new arena design was innovative, and ‘how clever to make the environment as much a contender as all the tributes!’.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That’s exactly what she asked. I assumed it was intentional, making the arena itself a killer. Like the poor girl who fell into the lava, that was…Anyway, as we’ve seen, they don’t have to murder each other to win. They just have to outlast everyone. And that can get…dull. So, when mutts and natural dangers enter the mix, they recalibrate. They realize there’s another, larger, and far less predictable enemy they have to overcome.”
“The arena?”
“The Capitol.”
“You think that enhancing the arena turns them against us?”
She had the audacity to snort.
“The districts have and always will be against us. Yet they continue to fall in line. Isn’t that why you and your bloodthirsty mentor push the Games harder every year? To serve as a metaphor for why?” She was speaking dangerously, and he watched her falter under his stare. “All I’m saying is, the more perilous the arena, the more they are reminded that they are powerless. Anyone can swing an axe, and they would at our heads if they could. But you can’t fight nature. You can just be smart and lucky,” She gulped down the last bit of fizzy drink in her glass. “We control the very nature around them. And they won’t soon forget that.”
When she said the word nature, a brief vision of green reflecting on the lake in District Twelve flashed across his mind. Nature could be cruel, but nourishing. Or, perhaps it was neither. Unbiased.
“Some would argue there’s nothing natural about mutts,” He quipped, hoping to turn the talk lighter.
“Some would argue humans are natural and therefore our byproducts and interventions must be, too.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I had two more glasses just while she was talking to me.”
“So, she believed you were suggesting…what, we design more intensive environments?”
“…Something like that. She wanted to know about my research.”
“I’d like to know about your research.”
She pondered this, as though unsure whether to believe him. Before she could divulge, something in the distance caught her eye and she closed her mouth into a tight smile.
“Another time. Ravinstill’s here.”
Indeed, the President had emerged onto the balcony above the courtyard, illuminated by a violet light.
“I’d better go find Gaul…”
He started toward the crowd, all coherent thoughts fading quickly into the din as the anticipation of these next few moments rose in his throat.
“It’s more than I’ve ever seen, too, you know.” She called after him. When he turned to give her a quizzical look, she grabbed a pastry from the table against their wall. “The food. Starvation isn’t a feeling most of us are unfamiliar with. It wasn’t that long ago. Now, we can celebrate that we’ll never have to feel it again.” She popped it in her mouth, a small cloud of powdered sugar escaping her lips.
He was almost ashamed of the leap in his heart as the President’s voice rang out calmly across the crowd. Why should he feel fear, now? When he was about to have everything he’d ever wanted?
He began to look around and take stock of where he was. A mansion that would soon belong to him. He tried to steady himself by focusing on the physical details of the environment. His parties would have plates filled even higher. He’d grow rose bushes in any patch of green he could find. He’d have a greenhouse full of them. He’d have suits in every shade of red. He’d have fireworks. He’d have rooms where he could lock the doors so even Gaul couldn’t bother him. He’d have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between. He’d have a voice that would stop the room. A voice that would stop the country. He’d have real control.
And her, he thought with one last glance at Kallisto, as he turned to confront his future. Why not? He’d have her, too.