a warning before this chapter, there is a mention of someone getting sexually assaulted in the past and one of the characters describes it a little so please proceed with caution if it triggers you. you'll know when it's brought up so if you're sensitive, please just skip those lines. it's also non-canon and just what i filled in for the story, it's really not too important.

—A Win and a Loss—

In the Academy cafeteria, Persephone only stared at the food on her tray without lifting a finger. She knew most, if not all of the tributes would slaughter for the meal she had before her, but something about the way District children were starving whilst she was granted with a full meal and more everyday killed her appetite.

"Are you not gonna eat?" Coriolanus asked her as he took a bite from one half of his sandwich. He hadn't exactly cared if she was hungry or not, but he only observed the blank stare she had been giving her food.

The Ignis girl shrugged. "This all seems too... I'm not sure." Persephone shook her head and frowned. What was she trying to say? Would Coryo, of all people, understand the way she was feeling? If even Dean Highbottom, creator of the Games, disapproved of them, what did that make of the rest of the Capitol?

Sejanus would understand.

"Don't tell me Sejanus has gotten into your head about sympathy for the Districts."

And her bubble of awareness fizzled away. "No, he hasn't. I was just thinking that..." Persephone furrowed her brows, "nevermind. It doesn't matter."

That we should stop a bloody, brutal battle with no specific purpose.

But Persephone Ignis refused to be a radical.

She adjusted her posture and straightened her back, missing the way Coryo shivered at the missed opportunity to see the arch in her back under the Academy uniform. He could see the most during their supposed graduation, but he desired more. Possibly even without clothes, watching her bare back arch out of habit—or perhaps pleasure-

Coriolanus scolded himself for his impure thoughts, his human instincts that took over his mind whenever he saw the girl.

Just as she picked up her fork and stabbed a piece of chicken on her plate, Persephone paused. "How am I supposed to make Reaper trust me, Coryo?" She leaned forward, eyes wide with worry. "He must have been starving when he refused that sandwich. He didn't take it because it came from me. How will he trust me to shape him into a spectacle?"

"Easy." He hid the urge to scream in frustration with her constant pushing about performing and not surviving, but ultimately kept his rage quiet. Besides, he felt as if he needed to pay her back for the idea to greet their tributes at the train. "Reaper's got nobody else higher above that can give him the things he needs. Like food, water, help. Show him how much he needs you, that you're his only hope to survive."

"And he'll just believe me?"

"Perse," Coryo covered her hand with his, "anyone so desperate will believe you once they understand it enough."

Persephone took yet another pomegranate seed in her mouth, chewing and swallowing it as she sealed her fate just a little more.

Oh, how cute she was when she was blind to the noose tightening around her neck.

"I should visit Reaper again, at the zoo." She nodded to herself, then laid pieces of the chicken from her plate into a napkin with a cookie. She folded it up tightly and frowned gently. "He must be starving now. Nobody feeds or cleans them, they're treated like animals."

Because they're District, the Snow boy wanted to add.

"A dead tribute can't compete in the Games."

He began loading parts of his plate into a napkin, copying her idea. Lucy Gray needed food, as she told him when he was dragged away in the cage. The tributes weren't being fed, and though they were District, they were still being treated like animals. Like scum.

Sejanus made his way around their table and set his tray down on the table with a scowl. "Trying to fatten that poor girl up so you can finally start taking bets?"

"Just because the tributes are going to die, it doesn't mean they have to suffer on an empty stomach until then." As much as she felt sympathy for the boy and his anger against the games, he had to realize not everything was about taking advantage of the tributes and continuing the Games. Persephone snapped her head back over to the boy across from her as he added onto her argument.

"You think that they'll give those kids a scrap if we don't give them the reason to do it?" Coryo retorted, irritation hinted in his eyes. "How do you think your tribute will have a chance if he can't eat?"

The Plinth boy gazed off into the distance and a blank stare, clearly troubled by conflict. After a few moments of silence, he finally spoke with regret. "He was my classmate, back in 2."

How guilty could one feel for being in charge of sending a friend to his death?

"It's not your fault he's in there-" the other boy tried to tell him, but was quickly cut off.

"No, you see, I know," and a deep hate settled on his face, "I'm so blameless I'm choking on it. My father bought him for me, you know, at the Reaping. Just so he could show me that I could never go back to 2."

And a shiver crawled up the Ignis girl's spine.

Money could buy anything—even death.

"But being Capitol's gonna kill me." He shook his head, earning a sympathetic look from the girl beside him until Coriolanus followed quickly with his complaints.

"So do something about it." The cold bite in his words left even Persephone slightly shocked.

Sejanus replied with amusement. "Quite the rebel."

"Oh, I am." Coriolanus smirked at his accusation, then leaned forward once he finished wrapping Lucy Gray's food with his napkin. "I'm bad news."

The way he spoke in such a matter-of-fact way sparked Persephone to wonder if he truly meant it. Highbottom's warning echoed in her ears once again. She eyed Coryo as her hand grew hot with the memory of his on top. His blue eyes and blonde curls, his perfect face that wiped all suspicion from her mind.

Of course High-as-a-Kite Bottom was out of his mind. What was she thinking?

"Come join us, Sejanus." Persephone told the boy with the corners of her lips perked up in a friendly gesture. She clamped her hand onto his with reassurance. "You can talk to Marcus, tell him the things you told us."

She missed the way Coriolanus Snow's jaw clenched, his features tightening in jealousy. His First Lady of Panem should not be touching a District-born boy so intimately. When his fists were balled up tight, her spine arching again to fix her posture caught his eye.

He could just rip off her clothes and watch it over and over again.

His mind had still been on her arch as they finished their food and walked over to the zoo from the Academy. Coryo's hand hovered over the small of her back, just above her butt, guiding her as they neared the cage of tributes.

She shivered under his touch as he grazed the fabric over her skin. He felt it.

A surge of power over the girl made him almost lightheaded.

Persephone walked past the equipment for broadcasting the tributes and pulled the napkin filled with food from her bag. "Reaper!" She called for the boy, pushing through the families with children to get near the cage bars. The boy only looked in her direction, leaning on a pole further into the cage, and stared.

"Reaper Ash? If you come closer, I'd like to talk." Then she held the napkin out and waved the cookie. "I have food... for you." Persephone offered him the full napkin.

When he didn't budge from his spot and maintained eye contact, she took a deep breath and sighed. "Even if you refuse to eat, which I know you're starving, I still just want to talk. There's no harm in that, right?"

Now she sounded desperate, eyes pleading for just a lick of his trust. Reaper took a glance over at another girl with long, curly hair, before he lifted himself off the pole and made his way to the fence. Dill, she recognized from the Reaping. They came from the same District. Persephone gazed up at him and his cold glare, suppressing all fear that he might grab her by the throat through the bars and choke the life out of her.

"Why did you take the punch for me?" He asked her, though it sounded more like a statement.

She was puzzled. "What?" The Ignis girl asked before she could stop herself.

"The hit. From the Peacekeeper." Reaper lowered his head down to her level, hand reaching up to curl around one of the metal bars. She kept her composure, a difficult feat. "Why did you jump in the way and take the punch for me?"

And Persephone had only a faint clue. "Because..." she trailed off, mulling over her response, "because you did nothing wrong. Peacekeepers maintain order, they hit back. They aren't supposed to hurt unprovoked."

"Ain't all Peacekeepers like that?" His gravelly voice gave her a pang of fear in her heart. "They abuse their power. They're all corrupt." Reaper then leaned closer, their faces only a small distance apart. "That's why I killed one of 'em back in 11."

Her eyes grew slightly wider, posture straightening to keep herself from jumping back in fear. To gain his trust, she needed to play into his opinions. Agree with what he said, show no hesitance, prove she was worth relying on. "Then he must have deserved it." Persephone lifted her chin with pride in her calculated answer.

"He did." His nostrils flared as he clearly remembered something that sparked anger in him. "He was gettin' handsy with some poor woman. I knew her, she was kind, always offered to help others. He kept sliding his hands over her, she was beggin' him to stop, screaming for help until he put his hand over her mouth. Nobody else was around. Nobody to help her."

Persephone fought the tears in her eyes, an eerie sickness in her stomach.

"But I was there." He scowled, brows furrowed as he remembered the event. "I called for him to stop, he told me to get lost. Then, I looked over at the lady." Reaper looked as if he was close to crying. "I'll never forget the fear in her eyes. Never. So I pulled him off her. He took a swing at me, but I ducked. I just kept... beating him. Didn't stop till I heard her cries and before I knew it, he was all bloody. Covered my fists, too. They never found out the truth, not even that it was me."

She was frowning now, Persephone trying harder than ever for her face to remain stone cold. When she told him the Peacekeeper probably deserved it, she only meant it to encourage him. To make him feel validated. She hadn't realized the possibility, the truth, that the Peacekeeper deserved every last punch he received.

"I understand," was the only thing Persephone could mumble. Her gaze diverted from Reaper to the ground beneath her, observing her shoes as she battled her morals. The Peacekeeper who punched her today hadn't even apologized or backed off until Coriolanus interfered. If he wasn't there, she almost feared for her life at what the man may have done to her.

If she, the respectable Capitolite Persephone Ignis, had been treated like shit and physically harmed by a Peacekeeper, they must have done much worse to the Districts with nobody to protect them. There was guaranteed to be more than just the poor woman Reaper described who suffered under a Peacekeeper's abused power.

Her eyes caught the napkin she still held in front of her. "A starved tribute slaughtered is no greater than a full one. Even if you die in the Games," Persephone extended the food to him again, "the pain in your stomach could at least be erased."

"Either way, I still die."

"And yet here you are, right now, with two days left to live and a chance to try luxurious Capitol food. Whatever you want, I can get you." The girl bit her lip at his still cold expression, recalling Coryo's observation from earlier. "There is nobody else right now walking up to this cage and offering you food. You're starving, Reaper, I can tell from the way you're eyeing what you supposedly don't want."

His mouth was watering too much, stomach empty and churning at the thought of scarfing down something other than scraps left for the Districts. "If you poison me, Capitolite, I'll be happier with death here than at the hand of another tribute."

Persephone only nodded, the corners of her lips perking up as he grabbed the cookie from her hand and took a bite. His reaction was priceless, face melting with a hint of satisfaction. He had never tried a well-baked cookie, and especially not from the Capitol.

What she hadn't expected was for him to snap the cookie in half and walk over to the girl tribute from his District, Dill. He handed the coughing girl one half, then grinned as she reacted the same way he did. Just as she was chewing, she coughed again.

Her face was sickly.

Once Reaper came back to the fence, she furrowed her brows and pointed to Dill. "She's sick."

"Yeah, has been for some time now."

"What does she have?"

"Tuberculosis."

Persephone knew of tuberculosis. Some citizens she knew in the Capitol got it during the war and she learned about it in one of her Academy lessons.

"She can treat it with antibiotics, if she gets on them for several months, then-"

"Did you forget?" Reaper's face morphed back into his cold expression. "We don't have that time. In Dill's condition, she- she won't be the victor. Unless she gets lucky, she's dead in two days."

"Right." Persephone scowled at her stupidity, degrading herself for ruining the bond of trust she had somewhat formed. "I'm sorry."

Reaper shook his head. "You ain't sorry till you show it, Capitolite. Those are just words. No meaning. You filthy snobs come in here with your food and apologies, like we don't know the blind eye you turn to the Districts. You act as if we don't know what you're doing to us. You're sorry? I'm in an animal cage getting starved and beaten just to be thrown into an arena and die. Can you imagine that, Capitol brat? Knowing you have a slim chance at survival, that even if you walk out of with your life, you still would have killed at least one person to survive? You ain't sorry, not one bit."

"Not all of us are evil, Reaper." She croaked, still scolding herself for her screw-up.

"And not all of us District are filth."

And the Ignis girl grew quiet. She heard many names referring to the District tributes. Animals, hounds, scum, even Clemensia accusing them of carrying a stench. Persephone was smart, though. She could get herself out of this one. "They don't know that. The Capitol needs convincing and only you can do it. I may be able to pull the strings and tell you what to say and do, but only you can prove to the Capitol, the Peacekeepers, everyone wrong."

"I'll be your puppet?" Reaper sneered.

Persephone leaned closer and assured him one thing: "You'll be powerful." She pushed the napkin of chicken to him, a wave of pride washing over her as he took a piece from it. "Once we make them care about you, love you, they will support you—with support, you survive."

He clenched his jaw. "They won't love me when they find out I killed one of their beloved Peacekeepers, they'll love me for who they think I am."

"This isn't about truth, Reaper." Persephone shook her head and frowned. "This is about playing the Games, winning them with the power of manipulation. They don't have to love you for you, they have to love who you appear to be. The odds will be in your favor. You wanna help Dill? Go home? Survive?"

Reaper hesitated, then nodded.

"Then we have to truly play the Games." He took the napkin in his own hands and began eating vigorously. Persephone grinned at her triumph, trust established for her to get busy in creating the public image of Reaper Ash. "And first, you have to understand you can't win the hearts of the Capitol. Not after you punched that Peacekeeper on live television."

He nodded in agreement, too busy stuffing his face.

"If you display your talents of strength and survival, you can win them over. The public will root for you as the victor, therefore offering more support. I'm not sure what Coryo put in his proposal to Doctor Gaul, but from what he talked about in class, there could be some sort of gambling aspect. Maybe funding to the tributes directly? Like things to help survive?" She began to mumble now, piecing together what the boy could have thought together already. "We can figure this out later, just eat."

"I'm already finished."

Persephone looked up to find her napkin empty and his mouth slightly dirty. "Oh, you have a little... something-" she pointed to his face, causing Reaper to wipe the wrong area with his sleeve. "No, it's- Could I?" She gestured to the napkin and then his face.

When he nodded, she grasped it from his hand and accidentally brushed fingers with him. Persephone wiped away the small bit of chicken from his mouth with a distinct friendly smile.

She missed the way Coriolanus's grip on his handkerchief tightened excessively. He stared down the pair, a pit in his stomach swirling with anger—and perhaps jealousy. When they shared the idea of getting close to their tributes for trust, he hadn't expected her to get so close to a boy like Reaper. A dangerous boy, whom he was told killed a Peacekeeper back in his District. What was he to do if she was hurt by him?

Lucy Gray took notice of the shift in his demeanor. "You alright there, Coriolanus?" Then, her gaze followed his own to the Academy Rouge girl he walked with. "That your lady?"

She found that the girl had high cheekbones and arched brows, tan skin complimenting her deep brown eyes. Her defined face with a sharp nose and her flawless posture truly made her a beauty. Despite her average, mature features, she managed to carry youth among them. Lucy Gray found that the girl Coriolanus stared at was no ordinary woman. She was elegant and young. She was perfect.

"No." The boy shook his head. "She's not my lady, she's my friend." But friends don't get jealous when other men share an intimate moment with the other. And he meant it. Persephone Ignis was his friend—until he would rise up to President with her as his First Lady.

"Friends don't look at each other that way. Maybe she doesn't have that look in her eye for you, but you certainly don't see her as just a friend." The songbird pointed out, taking a small bite of the food she had been gifted. "I always heard Capitol girls were some of the finest women you'll meet. She doesn't disappoint. What's her name?"

"Persephone Ignis." He frowned at her offensive comment, his gaze moving to her. "And she does have 'that look in her eye,' I've seen it before."

"Then maybe y'all aren't just friends."

"I don't look at her in a certain way."

Lucy Gray shrugged with amusement. "Whatever you say."

Persephone could feel someone's stare for about a minute. As her eyes left Reaper and to the left of her, she found nobody responsible other than a quick glance from Coryo's tribute, Lucy Gray Baird. Before she could think any further, she found Arachne toying with her increasingly frustrated tribute. She pushed a glass bottle toward her, then pulled it back like her tribute was a monkey.

Nobody could miss the way her tribute's eyes grew dark and cold.

"Arachne, stop messing with your tribute." Persephone called out to her classmate, watching as Arachne's attention diverted to the Ignis girl.

The District tribute took the chance, hand flying out to the glass bottle and smashing it against one of the fence bars to create a weapon. Before anyone could stop her, before Persephone could register what the tribute was about to do, mayhem ensued.

Her tribute grabbed her by the collar and held her close to the bars. A quick stab into her neck. Blood leaked rapidly from Arachne's wound. Persephone's eyes grew too wide. A gasp escaped her lips. Her body jolted in shock. The tribute's face held pride. In her neck. She knew instantly there was practically no chance to save the girl.

"Arachne!" Persephone screamed, rushing to the girl's side with every human instinct to help the annoying girl. As much as she was a snob, she wasn't a monster. She deserved no death, not yet. Her hands hovered over her bloody neck. Could she pull out the glass bottle? Apply pressure? What of the glass?

What could she do?

Her heart pumped so fast she couldn't feel a thing. Persephone wished she could forget the way the girl, who never really held kind feelings other than somewhat respect for her, pleaded for help. "Pers-" was the only word she could get out. Coriolanus appeared next to the girl, sharing the same panic as the Ignis girl while screaming for help.

"Arachne- SOMEONE HELP!" Her life was draining from her eyes too fast. Her hands clawed at the glass bottle.

In her neck. A glass bottle. Blood pouring. Persephone's hands poorly attempting to keep her blood in her body. Glass bottle. Her neck. Blood. Thick blood. Arachne. Her heart. Blood. Glass.

One of the girl's bloody hands latched onto Persephone's forearm, coating her red sleeve with crimson blood. Her mouth gaped open. She tried to form words. With her final breath, she clung to Persephone Ignis like her savior. No words were needed for the desperation in her gaze.

Blood. Glass. Death. Neck. Flowing, gushing blood. Every instinct to survive rushed through the dying girl's body.

Persephone hadn't recognized the booming sound of gunshots whizzing past her figure. The boy next to her pushed her body down by the nape of her neck. She couldn't take her eyes off her classmate, struggling to understand the girl's sealed fate.

Arachne Crane's eyes filled with panic as the life drained from them would haunt her forever.

She was dead in fifteen seconds.

Whether Persephone's ears rang from the shots fired or the death she never got to prevent, she couldn't hear a thing. Not the screams from the Peacekeepers to walk away. Not the sound of Coriolanus's pleas to bring her back.

Not even her own words of refusal, constantly repeating the same words over and over. "No, no, no, no, no, no," she continued to whisper like a mantra. Like if she refused to believe Arachne had been murdered, the girl would come back to life.

She scrambled against the hold of a Peacekeeper on her arm as he attempted to drag her away from her classmate. Arachne Crane, the girl she knew for years, dead before her eyes. And something told Persephone Ignis this whole tragedy had all been her fault. "NO!" She shouted against the truth before her eyes.

She desperately hit and screamed against the Peacekeeper who held an iron grip on her arm to find another way to help her. Her hands trembled harder than they ever had before. With a glance down at them, she noticed the excessive amount of blood—Arachne's blood—coated them so heavily she felt terribly sick to her stomach. Nothing could register in her mind. Every thought was consumed by Arachne. Not even the skin of her back grazed by a gunshot was noticed, despite its burning pain.

Persephone gagged, physically recoiling from her own body with her eyes still glued to the dead girl in an Academy Rouge uniform tainted with her own blood. As she was pulled away further from Arachne, her head kept itself turned to the direction of her body. She couldn't peel her eyes away. She wished she could have saved the dead girl—or never called her name in the first place.

The dead girl named Arachne Crane. The dead girl would remain her classmate. The dead girl wouldn't be covered with crimson.

The dead girl wouldn't be dead. 

a/n: just a quick question, would you guys like a faceclaim for persephone or should i keep her face ambiguous? i know some people like them and others don't but I just want you guys to help decide instead