long chapter for the wait, sorry! a/n at the end

—Skyfall—

The Arena froze over at night, something Reaper had not anticipated. Although graphic, he expected himself to die within the first hour of the Games due to their brutality in the previous years. In District 11, they only watched the Games to fuel their hatred for the Capitol.

On lonely, anxious nights back home, Reaper would stare up at the ceiling in his flat, worn-out bed and wonder what his strategy would be in the Games. He assured himself he would never kill any of the other tributes, regardless of any circumstance, and defend himself strictly.

Every scenario he imagined ended with his death at the hands of another desperate District tribute who just wanted to go back home.

A factor he had not acknowledged was his friend, a sick young girl named Dill. Reaper grew enraged when his name was chosen, as he was on the cusp of escaping the Games forever, but his hate swelled once Dill was selected for death.

Now, in the Arena of suffrage, with Dill huddled close to him for warmth as her body racked with heavy coughs, Reaper only wished to catch a single glimpse of his family and his last friend.

He knew Persephone would watch over Barley, his parents, and his unborn sibling, but none of it quelled the intense desire to protect them himself. To watch his family grow and continue their lives, never forgetting who they are.

He craved to burn down the Capitol for their ignorance. For what they do to children every year. For what they have done to him.

Reaper would have tucked himself away in a nook of the Arena's tunnels until the commotion of other tributes caught his attention. He slowed his breaths and waited for them to disperse, to return to their previous looming before he even took a peek.

Leaving Dill behind with the absolute chance of safety, he observed the ominous scene. Reaper could barely glance at Marcus's body, too angry to gain another reason for his revenge. As he trekked through, careful to remain silent and cautious, he neared the entrance to the Arena and scowled at fresh blood dripped and smeared over the ground.

Discarded on the floor, he discovered a peculiar yellow rose with a hidden scent of smoke.

And somehow, Reaper recognized Persephone Ignis.

Oh, how he wished he crawled out sooner. To see his Capitolite friend again, the one who promised the protection of his family and assured him of his avengeance. He cradled the yellow rose in his hands, the last reminder of her support left for him. The rest of the frozen night passed with his mind on survival and a swan who suffered in silence.

In the morning, Persephone knew sympathy for the Districts would land her just as low as Sejanus in Capitol society. She understood the dangers of speaking on the side of Panem's lower class. With her overbearing father demanding only utter perfection from her image, she had no chance of even whispering about her humanity.

Guilt choked her like a noose around her neck.

She lost all pride in being a Mentor and sending a District tribute to their death, even if it was someone who had a great possibility to win it all. Persephone grieved for Reaper not as her tribute, but as a person. A friend. And if he refused to die yesterday, his impending doom only inched closer to today.

As she adjusted the collar of her Academy uniform, Dunamis Ignis waltzed into the room, appearing in a closeted frenzy. Over the years, his daughter grew conscious of his tells: sweaty brows, frantic glancing, constant movement.

Dunamis was rushing—panicking, but for what?

She resorted to furrowing her brows, concealing her hidden knowledge. Dunamis liked to pride himself over his ability to remain physically flawless, but failed to do so around the girl who read him like a book.

"Persephone, my dear," he straightened out the encrusted vest over his white dress shirt, "as much as I would like to make sure you don't slip up today, an issue came up with the latest shipment. Materials got caught up in 12 and they need me to supervise."

"Again?" Persephone asked him, spinning around to face the man. "How many times has this happened within the month? Two, three-"

"Five." Dunamis replied sharply, eyes darkening. "I don't exactly watch the Hunger Games, they're brutal every year, but I would have liked to see you as a Mentor today."

Fat load of bullshit. He wanted to see how she would perform with the spotlight on her, not actually lead her tribute to victory.

The girl stepped away from the mirror once she managed to fit herself as close as she could to a state of pleasantry. Her hair fell in natural waves and her eyes glistened with unspilled tears, filled with a drained soul. "Anything you would like to criticize?"

Her flippant attitude was a result of her weary shell-shock. Despite it, however, a woman who walks on eggshells for so long either tends to deal with the pain or ends up completely numb.

He paid no mind to her shift in demeanor, displaying his real worry. Something important irked Dunamis. His proud strides landed him before her, scanning every little detail of her appearance. "You look a little pale, but that must be from those stitches yesterday."

For some apparent reason, most likely due to Doctor Gaul's attempts to keep their rescue mission under wraps, Dunamis only thought the stitches for her old and new wound were because they ripped. He had yet to know a District tribute, above all, scarred his supposedly perfect daughter.

"Listen, Persephone," the man sighed and pinched his nose bridge, "you should have been more careful with your stitches. Of course you can't control the fact that you were caught in the crossfire to help Arachne Crane," he missed the way she shivered at her name and closed her eyes to save herself, "but this is not who we are."

"And who are we?" Persephone bit her tongue until she tasted blood, a newfound sense of anger flowing through her body. Arachne was a sensitive topic—if she did not sob, which happened every time, she would fill with rage.

A rage so potent a drop could kill its victim.

"We are the Ignis family." Dunamis stated sternly, as if her words hit him harder than they should have. "We are proud. We are fire. But we are not delinquents who mess around and get into trouble."

"It's almost like I'm not completely part of this poor excuse of a family." Her anger came from a foreign place. If she were in the right state of mind and not tipsy on a little Morphling for the pain of her wound, she would have never opened her mouth—never thought of such opposing ideas. "Like I'm only half of you and half of my mother, whom I can't even remember."

Dunamis went quiet. It was as if his whole world stopped. All that mattered to him was his daughter in front of him who looked a little too much like her mother. "What are you saying?" Was all he could mutter out to keep his emotions at bay.

One thing Persephone and her father had in common: they either screamed or cried, nothing in between.

"I mean," she teetered over the edge as she blinked back tears, "I- I'm not-" Persephone took a pause to slow her sudden rapid breathing. What was she trying to say? What burning question, ever since Highbottom puzzled her, was she begging to be answered?

"Who was my mother?"

And the room went painfully silent. Persephone's heart was in her throat, observing the gears shifting in her father's head. What would he say? Dean Highbottom, although he was addicted to Morphling, told her more than the man ever did before. When he was quiet for too long, the only sound consuming the air of her labored breathing, she reinforced her words.

"Who was Leucothea?"

"Don't say her name." His eyes held the slightest glisten to them, his lips parted with no air in his lungs. "Who told you that? What did people say?"

His blatant worry left Persephone with a hint of confusion. What was he so anxious about? "That she was a Capitol sweetheart. That I look just like her."

Dunamis exhaled a relieved sigh, subtle enough to slip past his daughter. However, she continued to question his reactions.

Leucothea. As soon as she appeared among Capitol society, Dunamis Ignis, just a boy with expectations to raise his name in glory, found love at first sight.

She was elegant. She was graceful. Above all, Dunamis found himself enraptured by the white silk dress she first wore when she met him. Her loose curls in her hair, dark tan skin, and her pretty brown eyes. She was so simple, yet as beautiful as a white swan.

Leucothea was a white swan—the Capitol sweetheart.

And it did not matter that nobody before ever knew of her until she formed out of mist at social events, for she was naturally alluring. Enchanting.

Yet she hid a devastating secret, only now sanctioned by her husband: Dunamis Ignis.

"Your mother was everything." The man could hardly believe he was croaking out the truth to his daughter on a day when she was required to behave perfectly. Dunamis could not understand why when he gazed into the eyes of his daughter, Persephone morphed into Leucothea. "She was- she was my whole life."

"And she was killed in District 8." She whispered, as if wandering into uncharted territory to experiment what was true and false. "Shot dead, broad daylight." Persephone mumbled, brows furrowed as she quoted Dean Highbottom.

How much truth did the man spill if portions were not due to his Morphling addiction?

Dunamis swallowed a hard pill. "Yes, my dear." He inhaled sharply and fought the way he was only more reminded of the woman in their daughter's eyes. "She was reckless and unsafe with her escapades. Your mother traveled to District 8 during the Dark Days and never came back to the Capitol. She was murdered."

No matter how many years passed, how long she had been in the grave, the wound of Leucothea Ignis's death would never heal in Dunamis's heart. She was the love of his life—the only love who would fill his heart forever.

And she was dead.

It hurt to see people in pain, but it hurt more when Persephone saw her father, a strict and strong man, reduced to tears in his eyes at the thought of a woman she could not remember. "Do I remind you of her?"

"Always."

A blessing and a curse.

"But you are as much of her as you are of me. Exercise caution." Dunamis emphasized, adjusting the metal clip in her hair and prolonging the moments he took to survey her face. He saw Leucothea in her smile, her eyes, her demeanor.

It was her fatal flaw to be so vulnerable in a toxic environment.

"You know our mantra." He assumed, then grasped her hands in his and studied her identical eyes to her mothers'. Persephone's back arched to perfect her posture and winced heavily at the pain in the small of her back. "My dear, Ignis endures..."

"Ignis prevails."

Persephone was as much of an Ignis as she was a swan.

She followed the steps up to the auditorium, no support by her side to help maintain her stone cold face. There was no light in her eyes for the period of time. Every glance down at her hands was a hallucinated glimpse of Arachne's blood dripping from her fingers, staining her skin.

Her injuries stung and her heart never completely healed.

"Wakey, wakey, my Capitol friends, I'm Lucky Flickerman and welcome to day number two of the 10th Annual Hunger Games." Persephone placed her hand on the edge of her chair to support her stature, slowing her breaths to control her glass facade. "Now, while most of you were getting your beauty sleep last night, something scintillating occurred."

Her gaze flickered up to the screen as it changed. Persephone's breath hitched at the sight of the tribute Coriolanus warded off, dead with the clear indications of intentional death. The stress from the circumstances allowed the fact to slip past her, to not acknowledge the unmoving body of the boy after he received his beating.

Coriolanus killed a District tribute to save them.

A gag was forming in her throat

"Bobbin, from District 8, slaughtered."

Someone approached her from behind and slid their hand into hers. Persephone whipped her head around to find familiar blue eyes on a tall boy. She squeezed his hand, grateful for the way he morphed every stressful situation into a more calm one.

She swore his touch elicited sparks.

"Either way doesn't matter, ten tributes remain. Reaper, still top of the boards." Persephone's gaze flashed back to Lucky Flickerman at the mention of his name, which Coriolanus frowned upon. He began to question her loyalties, whether she cared for him or a District animal. Jealousy coursed through his veins, infecting his mind and his restraint.

"They aren't showing us what happened to that little boy." Lysistrata turned to her classmates with a frown. "He clearly was killed right there, there's cameras everywhere. It doesn't make sense."

The girl's suspicions spiked Persephone's heart rate. Would she find out what happened last night? That Coriolanus killed him to save her and Sejanus from death? That the little boy harmed her? The new cut on the small of her back burned with its presence.

Coriolanus slipped his hand away and hovered it over the arch in her back, using his other free hand to unbutton his uniform blazer. He was careful to touch her new wound, but felt the underlying temptation to hurt her at his hand.

Before he could form an excuse, Festus Creed inserted himself into their conversation. "They said there were old cameras, Lysie, probably just another one of Coral's." Any way to promote his tribute, he would, Persephone assumed.

"That rose in your hair yesterday," Coriolanus whispered to her, "it fell in the Arena. I'm not sure if anyone will notice, but if there's a clear view, people who are smart enough will know what happened last night."

Her blood ran cold. "What?" Persephone muttered, eyes wide as her fingers flew up to the ear it was perched on. It was then that she remembered among all the stitches, the numb ache in her heart, everything last night, the rose was discarded after she left the Arena.

It was true. Anyone with half a brain could tell it was a rose belonging to Coriolanus among the mysterious death of Bobbin.

Before anymore analyzing from the girl, her eye caught a sweaty, twitching Jessup on the screen. Persephone squinted her eyes and tediously watched his behavior. He looked sick and pale.

When Jessup sprung up to chase after Lucy Gray, almost animalistic, everything became clear to her. His sweat, the jerks in his body, the way he crawled and chased after her—Jessup contracted rabies from his bat bite on the train from 12.

If she could read her personal conflicts as well as she could with external situations, Persephone would never let herself be so naive.

Sliding out from her seat and standing in shock, her mind pieced together every possibility. Could it be something other than rabies? "Perse, what's happening?" Lysistrata asked her, observing the way the girl's eyes darted across the screen.

"Lysie, what is he doing?" Coriolanus glanced at her, who was responsible for her tribute. He stood next to Persephone, while the other girl followed in suit of both of them.

"Something's wrong, he- he wouldn't turn on her."

"He's deranged," Persephone mumbled as she settled on her prediction, "Lysie, what are the chances the bat from the train, the one that bit him, carried rabies?"

"Rabies?" She questioned, as if she could not believe it was such a disease. "His bite was infected, yes, but- but could it be?"

Jessup chased Lucy Gray throughout the Arena as she climbed atop a rubble structure to escape him. He could hardly stand, let alone run.

"He can't control himself, he's paranoid. It's highly likely he's infected." Her gaze flickered to the girl she grew up with, one she would consider her actual friend and not an acquaintance. "I'm sorry, Lysie, I think he's done for."

And then foam formed in Jessup's mouth as he begged Lucy Gray for answers. His glistening, pained face was highlighted in the newfound sunlight. Rabies was no longer an inference, but a reality.

Persephone shuddered and averted her gaze from the suffering boy. If there was any way Jessup could die in the Arena, it was almost painful that it was from disease. A prolonged death, every moment inching closer until someone put him out of his misery.

"Send him water." Coriolanus instructed her.

"Wait, what?"

"You remember the posters from the war." He lowered down to the girl's eyeline. "Rabies, it makes you afraid of water. Send him a drone."

"Scare him?"

"Yes," he leaned closer to her face as his eyes pleaded to help, "away from her."

"He's right." Persephone blinked back tears of sympathy as she sucked in a breath through her nose. A cruel fate for Jessup to die at the hands of himself. "Lysie, he's dead, regardless if you do this for him or not. He's never gonna survive without treatment in the Arena."

She could only remain motionless as Lysistrata bent down to her donation pad and selected to send him water. It would be partially human to end the boy's misery, a more kind option than the others. A drone swooped in and shattered a bottle of water all over Jessup.

He could not escape, no matter how hard he tried.

As he lost his balance due to his panic, Jessup fell back from the ledge and slammed his back against a flat piece of rubble. The wind knocked out of his lungs. What was meant to be a death from pity left his final moments in agony.

Collective gasps fell from the mouths of many students in the audience. Persephone's eyes widened, hand jutting out to grab Coriolanus's for comfort. Witnessing death after Arachne always left an ache in her heart. She inhaled sharply when she observed his body falling limp, soul fading from his body.

Before Lucy Gray could mourn the death of her friend, the cameras caught Coral and her crew surrounding the girl and cornering her as she attempted to run.

Dropping her hand with a sudden movement, Coriolanus leapt to his pad and spammed the button to send water.

"What are you doing?" Persephone furrowed her brows and glanced between his figure and the screen.

"The drones." He replied curtly.

The drones. Those mediocre attempts of supplying the tributes with anything necessary, which did more harm than good. Their damage outshined their help. It was a bright idea to defend Lucy Gray and ward off the other tributes with their harm.

The cameras captured the incoming drones, zooming across and heading straight for the crew of four. They flew and hit every tribute against Lucy Gray, immobilizing them and allowing her to escape.

"Hey!" A mentor shouted from the other end of the group. "You can't attack the tributes!"

"I'm just sending water." Coriolanus innocently admitted.

His tribute dashed away with the opportunity and left Coral's group to attack Lamina next. Persephone knew of Lamina to cry at every waking second, her version of expressing the grief of her certain death. The girl lacked strength, yet still plucked the courage to kill Marcus out of pity.

And she would face a brutal death at the hands of Coral.

As Lamina was tossed between Coral and another tribute, both prodding her with swings or jabs from their weapons, Persephone almost choked on her growing guilt to cry. It was undeserving. Someone as innocent as Lamina did not deserve a fate so vicious.

Once the District girl was eventually put out of her misery as a toy for the group, Persephone blinked away her tears. Coral lifted her off the ground with her pitchfork embedded deep in Lamina's belly and retracted it for her body to collapse down on the hard floor.

She could only hope Lamina would rest peacefully in her afterlife.

Coral quickly spotted Lucy Gray dumping their water bottles and rushed after her, chasing the girl up to a vent before she slammed the door shut and crushed Coral's fingers. For the next moments of Coral's pack arguing, Persephone found herself gazing up at the boy next to her.

He was always there next to her, wasn't he?

With a nudge from Coriolanus as his eyes were locked on the screen, Persephone caught sight of weak Dill as she coughed and drank from the last water Lucy Gray left. Just as she took a sip, Dill rested on the ground and elicited a few more coughs.

Her heart pounded when Reaper ran from the shadows to the girl. She watched as he set aside his protective weapon and rolled Dill over, propping her head up with his hand. Persephone pursed her lips, knowing from the moment she laid down that Dill was gone.

None of the facts prevented Reaper from calling her name, shaking her as if she were only asleep. "Dill!" He shouted her name, then rested her head against the ground and pulled away from her body with a loud scream.

Persephone's lip quivered. His pain was her pain. He could not complete his mission to protect and save the young girl. Reaper was angry and she knew it. His rage seeped through the screen and infected his Mentor, who shut her eyes and tilted her head down to hide her face of pain.

All Reaper desired to do was protect—and he failed.

District 11 was the most rebellious, but only because they were the most human. Reaper grew vengeful the longer he remained knelt by the girl's side. Heavy breaths racked his body, tears leaking from his eyes with no chance of ending them.

These tributes were District. They met their end at the hands of each other due to the Capitol's cruel hand of power. None of it was fair—the Games, the Arena, the Capitol, nothing.

They were human.

And they were slaughtered.

Reaper weaved his hands under Dill's body and carried her with ease to the center of the Arena. He laid her next to Marcus and Lamina, discarding his hat as all his joy drained from his soul. He would let the other tributes rest in peace, not rot under the gaze of the Capitol.

He knew Persephone watched his every move. The Capitolite was supposed to as his Mentor, but he also knew she watched over him to witness his last moments of life. She was something different. She was a warm fire in the freezing cold. A torch in darkness. A beacon of hope.

Persephone was human.

As much as Reaper hoped to own up to his words of performing for her security of the Plinth Prize, he could only hope she understood his empty promise. He held the responsibility to finish his duty in proving that the Districts were human. That the Games were wrong. That the tributes deserved to live.

He gathered all the bodies he could find of the other deceased tributes and laid them amongst each other, each given a resting place of death. He shut their empty eyes if they were open, arranged their bodies to erase their despair, and stood in the middle with trembling legs.

A part of him wished he could collapse among them all and rest in death, too. To go peacefully and escape the satisfaction of an evil death from the Capitol. He was drained—Reaper was tired of everything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the yellow rose from the night, its scent of smoke and burning wood retained.

Persephone would understand. She would want this. If it were her, she would do the same. Reaper leaned down to Dill once more and curled her hand around the yellow rose. Their humanity was exposed, the shells of their souls shoved in the Capitol's face.

But the tributes do not deserve to have their faces and bodies on display.

His eyes scanned around the Arena and settled on the large Capitol flag, a large enough piece of cloth to cover all of them. To conceal their makeshift purpose of a performance. They weren't spectacles, only children.

He tightened his grip on the edges of the flag and yanked it loose. Gasps sounded in the auditorium as students jumped from their seats in shock. Reaper was out of hand, according to them.

"He just tore down the flag..." Lucky Flickerman muttered in his microphone.

All Capitol citizens were outraged except for Persephone Ignis, who could only dream that he could see a nod of approval from her. He fulfilled his personal purpose.

As the flag dragged behind him, Persephone only stood and stared up at the screen. Her face was blank, so blank even Coriolanus could not interpret what she was feeling at the moment.

However, she only felt proud of her friend for accomplishing the right thing.

Reaper laid the flag over the bodies of the tributes and once finished, locked eyes with a camera pointed to him and revealed his teary face full of rage. His arms raised beside him, as if offering himself to their will.

"Are you gonna punish me now?" Reaper asked them, face as cold as stone. He paused for a moment, courage plucked from the knowledge that Persephone would continue his intentions if he did not succeed.

Humanity did not end with him. It was infectious. A parasite among its host that only begged for positive change. For rebellion. When someone like Persephone contracted it, there was no doubt that she would never stop until justice was served on a large platter for the starving people.

His voice raised to a shout. He craved their revenge. The will of the people burned in him, it pushed him further and pleaded to be heard. "ARE YOU GONNA PUNISH ME NOW-!"

Persephone jolted at the sudden image of Doctor Gaul, clad in red with her eyes of insanity. Where was Reaper? Was he okay? Such a convenient time for an interruption when the truth was about to be heard.

"Capitol citizens. I'm afraid I must interrupt our Games to announce a tragic loss. One that affects us all. Felix Ravenstill, son of our beloved President, has this morning succumbed to his injuries sustained in the rebel bombing."

An image of Felix, skin pale and eyes closed, replaced her face and received a sharp gasp from Persephone. He was dead. They broadcast the photo of his face, showing him lifeless.

"Out there in the Districts, they will be celebrating this young boy's death as a triumph. I will not allow my Games to give our enemies such a victory. I swear to you, here and now, before the sun goes down tonight, a rainbow of destruction will engulf our Arena. Even if it means there is no Victor in these Games!"

And shouts ensued. Persephone's blood ran cold. Hope was lost for every tribute in the Arena. Her fingers touched her lips to cover her gaping mouth.

Hell was emptied and all its demons were unleashed due to a monster named Volumnia Gaul.

hi everyone! i just wanted to completely apologize for the lack of updates on this fic the last three days. some people might not exactly care which i understand, but i've been struggling mentally due to recent events of shedding light on the guy who spread rumors that i was a slut and did things i did not completely do when in reality, what he did to me was considered somewhat rape.

just recently, after a few months of my internal struggle of telling other people, i've told adults in my life and my school. school is nearing around finals for me and that may also slow updates down, but the past few days was only due to the highs and lows with accepting what happened.

i'm sorry if this fic lacks as consistent updates as before, but i promise i will try to get to the parts i'm excited to write about and at least get to part two of this, which will come around the end of the movie and give you guys a lot of content with persephone and coriolanus, which will bleed into the events between and during the og hunger games trilogy.

i love all of you so much and please be understanding of my personal life.