Post-Lucetific - This one is a liiiiiiiiiiiittle tragic

[seikilos]

Title: The Last Days of Decline
Fandom: Tales of Legendia/The Hunger Games trilogy/luceti
Genre: Angst
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 (major character death, violence, dismemberment, trivialisation of mental illness)
Words: 6474
Disclaimer: I don't own the above media.
Summary: Katniss isn't sure she likes this new woman from the Capitol. She acts as though none of the rules of District 13 apply to her and she watches Katniss far too closely.

Grune fears for Panem. Try though she might to inspire hope, it may well be that the despair in this world is too great and that Schwartz will claim it in the end.
Author's Notes: As I was reading through the Hunger Games triology, I kept thinking about the ways that this series could be crossed over with Tales of Legendia, and I kept wondering how Grune, whose role is to inspire hope and to save world after world from being claimed by the other half of her soul, could possibly win in a fight for Panem. Exploring the idea is what led me to write this.

I've tried to make this comprehensible for people who only have experience with one work or the other. Tales of Legendia isn't exactly a well-known game, and a lot of Grune's role is left ambiguous in it, so I've also made use of extensive amounts of headcanon. So, um...good luck?

Katniss isn't sure she likes this new woman from the Capitol.

She had arrived not long after the destruction of District 12, leading a small exodus of some of the oddest people Katniss has ever seen. They have the wild-coloured skin and hair of Capitol residents; some of them retain pieces of the flashy clothing and jewelry that seem to be their trademark. But these people aren't nearly as soft as the ones she remembers. They're lean from the scarce diet they had been forced into as they had travelled through the forests that separate Thirteen from the Capitol. Most of them have calluses, healing injuries, and muscles—real ones, the kind that come from hard work. They also have the look of people who may not have known lifelong hardship, but who have known recent and deep pain. They are strange people who aren't of the districts, but who no longer are of the Capitol, either.

Their leader, Grune, is different. The trials she and her group must have faced to reach Thirteen—and Katniss still can't quite believe they were able to travel so far without being shot or captured by Snow's soldiers—don't show in her at all. Only a seemingly unshakable serenity is visible on her too-beautiful face. (Katniss can only imagine how many surgeries she must have had. No one looks like that naturally.)

During Grune's first days in Thirteen, Katniss waits for there to be some sort of retaliation. In the only bit of Capitol attitude Katniss can see in her, Grune seems to think none of the rules apply to her. She doesn't wear the standard-issue grey uniform of the district but keeps the seemingly simple (but probably inconceivably expensive) green dress and white veil she had arrived in. She makes no attempt to follow the schedule that each resident is issued, not even pretending far enough to receive the daily tattoo. And she never calls anyone "Soldier," as she should, but by their names. Somehow, she seems to know them all.

Despite all of this, Grune is never disciplined. Instead, she's loved nearly universally. It's something Katniss can't quite admit that she resents. People respect her for the most part and they look to her as the symbol of the rebellion, but they don't like her.

Still stranger, Grune treats everyone equally, with patience and kindness, and she somehow has the luxury to care about all of them. She plays with the children and lets them braid her spring-green hair. The Capitol people she brought with her are scarily devoted to her.

In fact, the only person who doesn't seem to like her is President Coin, and that is what makes Katniss hold back her final judgement. She's heard that the two women disagree on nearly every subject.

She's witnessed one of their arguments. Grune had done nothing so undignified or foolish as shout at Coin, but Katniss had seen her lips thin and the colour leech from them. It had been the first moment in which Katniss thought she might be able to change her mind about the other woman.

And it had looked as though, in spite of her strangeness, Grune was just as human as the rest of them.

*

"Good night, Miss Grune!"

Grune bends down to press a kiss to the top of a young District 12 boy's head. He holds her tight, which makes completing the gesture difficult, but she manages. "Good night, Yarrow. Sleep well."

She doubts he will—not so soon after his home was bombed into rubble and many of his friends killed—but the wish and the normalcy it provides are more important than many might guess.

His uncle understands; she can see it clearly in his expression when he adds his own good night to that of his nephew. She catches his gaze before she gives her response: "Good night, Milfoil. Sleep well."

The corner of his mouth lifts, but he only says, "Thank you. You as well." His hand drops to Yarrow's untidy head. "Come on, pup. It's time for Miss Grune to get her rest, too."

They leave soon after, Yarrow waving his goodbye. Grune smiles and waves back until the door closes behind them. Then her hand falls and her brows draw together into what has become their natural position whenever she is alone.

She will never stop fighting for the people of this ruined world, not until she vanishes from it, but—she is worried. Though she is doing all she can to bring hope to Panem, she fears very much that she may be too late.

She bends down and picks up from the floor the storybook she had been reading to the children earlier that evening. One of the refugee children from District 12 had loaned it to her: she had snatched it as she and her family had fled their homes and it was one of the only such books in the district. Such so-called "frivolities" had no place in District 13, she had been informed.

Her frown deepens. District 13 may be the seat of the rebellion against the Capitol, but from the moment she had arrived and witnessed Coin's repressive control of her citizens, she has known that, if they succeed, the new government will be just as rotten as the old. Of those in command of the district, only Boggs shows any sign of trustworthiness. One person, in this case, is simply not enough.

She spends a moment on an intense wish that she had not insisted that Dhaos remain behind. At the time, it had seemed to be the right decision—after losing the last two worlds, her lover had become emotionally compromised and had needed time to recover. But now . . . she would very much like not to be alone.

She sighs quietly, acknowledges the feeling, and sets it free. She then strides to the door and opens it. She needs to return Posy's book, and then there is much to be done. There always is.

*

Katniss' mind is a tangle and she can't say if pulling on the loose thoughts will tighten their knots further or cause them to unravel entirely. She can't say which would be better, either.

After discovering the torture her prep team had undergone because it was thought the brutality would please her, after Coin's none too subtle threat to force her into compliance, she can't calm herself. Going outside and being given freedom of movement had helped, but after her fight with Gale—and seeing how afraid the former silly and childlike Octavia, Venia, and Flavius are—the restlessness had only begun all over again.

The meeting with Beetee at least starts well enough, because once again, she's given a taste of the outside in the form of a grassy field. Even if it isn't real, it sets her at her her ease a little, and—

Katniss blinks. Grune is there as well, watching the hummingbirds flicker about. It's the first time she can ever remember Grune looking happy.

. . . That can't be right. Grune is the one who has a smile for everyone (except Coin and Plutarch). Her mind really is messed up today.

"Hi Beetee," Gale greets the older man. "Have you learned anything new about the black fog yet?"

The black fog is what everyone calls the darkness that's begun to appear more and more often all across Panem. Anyone caught in it becomes almost totally incapacitated by fear, despair, or anger. Sometimes, victims become delusional. The general theory is that it's a Capitol weapon that got away from them. Katniss can believe it—the Capitol's inventors seem to take a special delight in preying on their victims' deepest, most private emotions.

"Not yet." Beetee shakes his head. "It's turning out to be impossible to trap. If we could actually catch a sample, we could start making some progress."

Katniss glances at Grune, but the woman does not comment. Grune has her own theory about the origins of the fog: that it's produced by the dark side of their own hearts. Needless to say, they all think she's cracked.

Bizarrely enough, Katniss finds that a small relief. Compared to how damaged the rest of them are, Grune had come across as a little too sane. It's nice to know that she's just better at hiding her losses than most.

The meeting continues on from there. She and Gale receive their weapons—the very best either of them have ever owned. Katniss begins to wonder just why Grune is there. She isn't receiving a weapon. (Katniss can't remember ever seeing her handle one.) She only seems to be there to watch them. It makes her uncomfortable. Even when they leave, she can still feel Grune's eyes on their backs as they walk out of the artificial field and back into Thirteen's slick corridors.

*

That evening is the first that Schwartz appears in District 13.

Grune is volunteering in the medical wing when the other half of her soul blinks into existence close by—very close by. She's meant to announce the name of the next patient to the doctor on call. Instead, the clipboard clatters from her hands and she bolts from the medical wing.

Shouts follow her, first from medical personnel and then from guards, but Grune ignores them all. If Schwartz has come personally, she means to claim a victim. And for her to penetrate so deeply into what is meant to be Grune's stronghold. . . . What it says about the power Schwartz has gathered would cause her to fear for this world if she allowed herself.

She flies past the elevator and down the emergency stairs. She can hear footsteps pounding behind her and similarly pays them no mind. They will not stop her, for she will not allow them to.

Four levels down, she flings open the door to the hallway and rushes directly into the oppressive world of the black mist. There is no sign of the walls, the floor, the ceiling—they have all been swallowed up in drifting bands of darkness. The room could be two or two hundred metres across; time is a fluctuating thing, as insubstantial as the mist. The place that Schwartz has made for herself is both disorienting and isolating, and that is precisely the way Grune's enemy likes it.

Grune steps forward without hesitation, searching for whoever it is Schwartz has laid siege to. When she finds what she is looking for, she breathes in sharply. Schwartz has already all but completed her work. Ahead, swaddled in the blackness, she is holding out her hands and a young man is reaching for them.

"Flavius!" Grune shouts, but he does not so much as react, let alone turn to look. His gaze is bound willingly to that of Schwartz. His tremors had never stopped since his torture, but now they have ceased, and she recognizes the acceptance in his posture.

Still, she must try.

"Do not give in to her! You can still build a life for yourself here, surrounded by your friends." She strides forward; the mist is deadening her voice and robbing her words of force. "What of Octavia and Venia? You know they will be lost without you."

She reaches out to touch his hand—but instead, unhesitatingly, Flavius places it in Schwartz's.

"You shall rest in the void forever and all pain shall fade from you," Schwartz promises, hints of tenderness and triumph marring her cool voice as her fingers curl around his.

"Schwartz!" Grune shouts and the other, same woman lifts her head.

"He has made his choice, Grune. You cannot interfere."

She circles her arms around Flavius, drawing him to her. Her gaze locked on Grune, Schwartz fades in a twist of dark purple light, taking the mist with her and taking Flavius out of time forever.

When the hallway is revealed once more, Grune hears startled noises from her pursuers, some very close by, but she remains where she stands, head bowed.

Damn Coin and her torture. Flavius had been as sheltered and carefree as a wealthy child. He had not had anything to draw upon as a way of shielding his spirit from such terrible brutality and no way to bring himself peace when it had ended. Now she must place him within her heart and grieve for him, along with the countless others who have never existed, here and on so many other worlds. She will remember and honour him, for, aside from Schwartz, no one else will.

"Grune . . . ? What happened?"

She looks up to see Aelius, who had been assisting her in the medical wing. There is a trio of guards she recognises, and perhaps she could even call up their names were the situation otherwise. Standing not much farther away are Boggs and Katniss.

All of them are staring at her.

"The black mist took Flavius," she says, knowing the futility of her words.

The blankness on all their faces, especially Katniss', is a blow she withstands, unflinching.

"You don't mean Fulvia, do you?" Boggs asks. He is tense with a soldier's preparedness to act.

She raises a hand to her temple, feigning headache to cover heartache. "No, I do not." Her gaze lowers, then lifts. "Never mind. . . . It is nothing."

*

Katniss doesn't see Grune much after that, except the day the hospital in District 8 is bombed. She's glad of it. After the first day the black fog had penetrated Thirteen, suspicion had run against the other woman amidst the leaders of the rebellion—why was Grune of all people able to sense its arrival? It was obvious that she was connected to the fog somehow, even without adding in those sightings of a beautiful masked woman in black hiding in the fog's heart. If both Grune and this "Schwartz" hadn't turned up at the same time, Grune would have had even more explaining to do than she already does.

In the end, though, Grune stays one of their leaders to the pleasure of most of the district, and that leads Haymitch to speak privately with Katniss.

"A word to the wise, sweetheart," he says out of the blue one day.

She clamps down on her irritation and waits for him to go on.

"Keep your distance from Grune. She's gotten to be a lot more popular than Coin these days, and that's causing all sorts of problems."

"What kind of problems?" she asks, impatient. She already knows how well-liked Grune is; it would be obvious to even a baby. What is he getting at?

Haymitch looks at her as if she were stupid. "What kinds of problems do you think there would be if one of the rebellion's leaders were more popular than the president?"

And suddenly, his words make far too much sense. It's just like when the Tributes outsmarted the Capitol all over again. It doesn't matter who's in charge, does it? Envy and pride are always the same.

"She wants Grune gone."

Haymitch shrugs. "I didn't say that. But you probably don't want to stand all that close to her, if you understand what I'm saying."

She does—and overall, it's easy advice to follow. Between Peeta's recovery from the Capitol's torture and being shot herself in District 2, she couldn't have spent time with Grune even if she'd wanted to. The only time she might have had the chance is at Annie and Finnick's wedding. It's easy enough to avoid her then, even if she can feel Grune's eyes on her a time or two. For all her motherly behaviour, Grune has a gaze sharper than any arrow tip.

Then again, Katniss is forced to acknowledge, in the old days, her mother's looks could be none too dull as well.

It's when she's placed on the same Capitol infiltration team as Grune that Haymitch's words come back to her with the force of a tree in the path of an inattentive runner. And the theory that Coin wants them dead becomes solid fact when Peeta is put on their team to replace a lost member. Peeta, who's still hijacked by the Capitol to believe she's the worst evil imaginable.

She can barely sleep for the crushing headache the situation gives her, on top of the residual pain from her steadily growing collection of injuries and, of course, the nightmares. Some people would say that their presence, a rare constant, could almost be a comfort.

Some people—most people—don't have the nightmares she does.

She's just gotten up from her bed to go for a run, wander the halls, anything, when a knock at the door startles her. She nearly goes to wake her mother out of habit—as the daughter of a healer, she's used to people arriving at all hours of the night—but decides to let her sleep for a little longer and answers it herself.

"Good evening, Katniss," Grune greets her, and Katniss' breath catches. This is the first time either of them have sought each other out, and even if she doesn't yet understand why Grune has done so, she can sense the importance of the moment.

"I hope I am not disturbing you," she goes on, and now Katniss can act.

She steps outside and closes the door. "I wasn't asleep."

Grune smiles, a thin, wry expression very, very different from the ones she usually shares. "I had assumed as much." The smile drops from her face. "Might I have a word?"

"Sure," Katniss agrees cautiously. Just speaking with her can't hurt, can it? It's not like it's going to jeopardize her place on the useless team as they prepare to film propos in the Capitol while everyone else does the fighting.

She follows Grune to an unguarded storeroom; when the other woman enters it, Katniss hesitates. She knows now that Grune, despite her Capitol-soft appearance, is a real combatant—perhaps even the best on the team. (And this is true with her using the oddest weapon imaginable. Who in their right mind would choose an urn over a gun, especially when they're equally lethal with both?)

There might be no sign of either urn or gun, but going somewhere alone with a woman she still isn't sure she trusts—

Katniss grimaces. She has a long list of people who want her dead and Grune, she's almost positive, isn't on it. She's curious about what Grune wants—maybe too curious for her own good. But she'll take the risk.

She steps inside and lets the door close behind her. She says nothing; she only crosses her arms.

"I won't keep you," Grune says, her voice strangely subdued. Normally when she speaks there's strength at the core of her voice, even when her audience is children or the sick. Tonight, though, she only sounds weary. "But I must ask you a great favour."

It sets Katniss even more on her guard, though not against Grune. There's something, some threat, that's pulling apart the most held-together person in the district, and Katniss is ignorant of it. She's sick to death of being kept in the dark—she's finding out what it is right now.

"What is it?"

The answer is one she never would have expected:

"I need you to hope."

". . . What?"

Katniss stares, but if this is a joke, it's the least funny one she's heard since the Arena. Grune is watching her with a scary intensity, and it makes a larger part of her than she'd like want to run and hide.

That's probably why she lashes out with angry incredulity. "You want me to do what?"

"I need you to hope," Grune corrects. "This world is in terrible danger."

A gunshot laugh, short and raw, escapes Katniss, because Grune is only noticing this now? But she goes on before Katniss can speak.

"The woman in black, Schwartz, wishes to unmake this world so that it never existed. She draws strength from the anger, hate, and despair of the people of this world." The force is back in Grune's voice, and with it is the kind of urgency that just might make her catch fire right along with Katniss. "If they do not begin to hope and to reach out to one another instead, she will grow too powerful, beyond my ability to defeat her."

"Wait—just what do you mean by 'beyond your ability to defeat her'?" Katniss demands.

She can feel Grune withdraw in response to the resistance she offers and her voice cools. "Defeating Schwartz is my sole reason for being here."

Being where? In District 13? "I thought your reason for being here was the rebellion," she accuses, unhesitatingly hostile. If Grune has been using them—

"The rebellion gives the people of Panem hope where previously there had been none," she responds, cutting off Katniss' thoughts. "Even though it is doubtful much will change if it succeeds, I cannot ignore it. The rebellion is the most powerful means of counteracting Schwartz's influence there is—and it is still possible that this country truly will change."

Katniss bites out, "Of course things are going to change. I'm going to take down Snow and put an end to everything."

Grune sighs.

When Grune had first arrived from the Capitol, Katniss had thought her a young woman, not much older than herself. As time passed, she had become less and less sure of her first guess.

Now she's beginning to wonder just how old Grune really is.

"Hope for me, Katniss," Grune says as she takes a step forward. The sound echoes in the silent storeroom. "Please. As the Mockingjay, your influence reaches farther than any other. Your belief would weaken Schwartz significantly and allow me the chance to drive her away."

The "please" gives her pause. She's never heard Grune use the word for anything more than politeness.

She wavers.

. . . But then she returns to her course, as firm as before. "I can't."

Two simple words, and yet their effect is enough to—frighten her. Sorrow cracks across Grune's face; when she speaks again, her voice is low and tired.

"Please, Katniss."

"I can't give you what I don't have," she tells her. Instinct is screeching at her that she's wrong, that she's making a mistake, but she's not going to lie. This is the truth and there's nothing she can do about it. "I don't have hope. I haven't ever had it. Go ask someone else, because you've come to the wrong person."

Her anger and her hatred for Snow are what keep her going. Even if she believed Grune's story about Schwartz, she wouldn't give them up. Not when she'd collapse without them, leaving all those Tributes—all the innocents Snow had killed—unavenged.

Katniss has no idea what Grune sees when she looks at her, and now she no longer cares. Grune can look all she likes, because her answer is not going to change.

And in the end, it's Grune's gaze that lowers first.

"I see," she says softly. She looks up at her one last time. "Good night."

She turns and walks out of the room with strides that are no less long or precise than before Katniss' refusal. Her veil drifts behind her in the stale air, and then the door cuts her off from sight.

*

She is going to lose. Unless the course of what is to come is greatly diverted, unless the hearts of many are changed, Schwartz will bring this world to the void.

She will not give up. She will fight until she fades from the world. But she does not think her battle against Schwartz will be very long.

*

Everything has gone wrong. Katniss still can't take in what's happened without her mind reeling back in self-defence. Squad 451, the propos group meant only to participate in the safest of fighting and the simplest of pod-clearing, has been cut from eleven to five. Their TV crew has been halved. If Cressida hadn't led them to Tigris' shop, none of them would have survived.

She's expecting to lose more of the team, maybe all of them, when they leave the shop. The likelihood of everyone living past this day is so low that it may as well be nothing. But she doesn't expect to lose someone before they so much as step out the door.

"I will be going no farther with you."

Katniss' head snaps up; everyone is suddenly, completely focused on Grune.

"What are you talking about?" Gale demands. "You can't leave now!"

"I must." Grune gently pushes away the warm and concealing fur coat Tigris had been attempting to offer her. Then she unbuckles her holster and lays it, the gun it contains, and what remains of her ammo on a nearby table. Katniss feels her stomach roll.

"Grune, we need you—you're the best shot we have left," Cressida pleads.

"You can't be thinking of going out there unarmed. You'll be dead in seconds!" Gale adds.

"Please, Grune."

The quiet voice belongs to Peeta, and only for him does Grune pause.

"I will not be unarmed." She speaks to him as a way of telling all of them, her expression soft the way it used to be, before the deaths had begun. "Do not worry about me."

They all look at her with skepticism, but then Katniss remembers. Something had happened when they had been fleeing the lizard mutts. Finnick had been within a breath of being torn apart and then from—somewhere had come a too-white flash of light. It had killed the mutts and let him live, and when they had been speculating about what it was later, Grune had said . . . Grune had said nothing. Katniss had been too busy running and trying not to vomit at what had happened and at the dreadful overwhelming stench of roses, but now. . . .

She gets the feeling she knows what this is about.

"Where do you want to go?" Finnick asks. His tone isn't hostile, unlike Gale's—it's simply grey. For someone as broken as Finnick, the past days have probably brought him to the edge. Much more and he'll tip over, like Annie. "And what are you going to do?"

Grune crosses the room to lay a careful, gentle hand on his shoulder. Finnick jolts at the contact, then stills. "There is someone I must face alone."

"If you're talking about Snow—"

She cuts Gale off. "I am not." Before Katniss can look away, Grune traps her gaze. "It is time for me to face Schwartz."

Cressida, Pollux, and Tigris look confused; being only a minor part of the rebellion, Cressida and Pollux have never heard Grune speak of Schwartz in the meetings, and Tigris is a very recent acquaintance. Peeta, too, is ignorant of the name. He's been too dangerous to give any more information than necessary. But she and Gale and Finnick all know who she means.

"We'll help," Finnick volunteers. He cracks something of his old charming smile. "Our team can pull off two assassinations for the price of one, right?"

There's a hint of tenderness in Grune's expression for just a moment before it's shut down. "You cannot help. This is not a fight for mortals."

For . . . what?

Even she's gaping now at that statement, so deliberately laid before all of them. Either this is it and after the horrors of the past days Grune has finally lost it—and of course that's it, that has to be it—or. . . .

Katniss' heart begins to tremble in her chest.

"For mortals," Grune repeats. Katniss must have spoken aloud, even if she has no memory of doing it. "Schwartz is neither human nor of this world. She came to grant the wish of the districts: for an end to their suffering."

"Then why are you stopping her?" Peeta asks, suppressing the betrayal in his voice. Katniss can hear it, though. She knows him far too well to be fooled.

Grune smiles that worn smile that Katniss has begun to learn (and that she resents for the embers of empathy it raises in her). "Schwartz believes that to exist is to suffer. She will return the world to the void to save all its people."

"That's garbage and you know it." Gale strides forward. His weak grip on his temper has let go. "You can't leave, Grune, and definitely not to chase after some imaginary danger." He seizes her arms; she lets him. "Or do you not care that more of us will die without you?"

Grune does not react to Gale's roughness the way any of them expect. Instead, she does something Katniss can't begin to make sense of: she rises on her toes to kiss his forehead.

"It is because I wish to see you live that I am leaving now." She steps back, out of Gale's surprise-loosened hold. "You cannot stop me."

Then, she circles the room, and one by one she bestows the same kiss on all of them, even Tigris. To Cressida, Pollux, and Peeta, she gives a hug. Finnick, however, hugs her first.

When she reaches Katniss, she stops and waits, giving her time to ask the question that's been growing within her since Grune's pronouncement:

"If Schwartz isn't human and it's your job to fight her off—then what does that make you?"

Grune's response . . . is again a smile, of both the deepest sadness and the purest love.

She takes her hands. "Goodbye, Katniss. Do not forget to hope, and do not forget to love."

When Grune leans forward, Katniss closes her eyes. She feels the touch of her lips against her forehead long after Grune has released her hands and stepped back.

She opens her eyes to watch Grune as she says, "Goodbye, everyone. Thank you for the time I was able to spend with all of you. I will not forget it, nor you. I love you all."

And then she begins to glow. Katniss' hand flies to her mouth; some of them gasp or cry out. Seconds later, she melts into a shower of brilliant white feathers and vanishes.

As some of those feathers settle to the floor, Peeta's unsteady voice threads into the profound and shocked silence that is left behind.

"Grune just melted into a bunch of . . . of feathers and disappeared. Real or unreal?"

Katniss swallows with a dry mouth and breathes out, "Real."

*

When Grune appears in the Cradle of Time, it briefly seems as if she has not left the Capitol. The Cradle always chooses a place to twist into a fever dream of reality, but colours in the Capitol are so garish and unrestrained that the Cradle's corruption seems minimal.

It's the work of a bare moment to orient herself before she begins her journey to Schwartz. There are no pods to avoid in the Cradle-Capitol; they are a piece of cruelty her other self would refuse to emulate. Instead, her trial is the monsters, the muttations of Panem. These she defeats, though not easily. The only reason she is not concerned by her weakness is she does not allow herself to be.

She is sweating and worn by the time she reaches the Cradle's end, and she sits for a moment in front of a six-storey building that curves in an arc that, in defiance of all logic, nearly touches the ground. Only when her breathing is even and she has both allowed her troubled thoughts to surface and stilled them does she rise and turn the final corner.

Schwartz hovers in the air before a warped version of President Snow's mansion, roiling clouds of black mist surrounding her. Though it has been some time since she has seen the location in anything but Capitol propos, Grune recognises it immediately. Of course this is what would lie at the end of the Cradle of Time. The only other shape it could have been is the Arena, but that place is for the powerless. It is not for them.

Schwartz turns in the air. She does not descend, forcing Grune to look up to her.

"So, you have come at last."

"I have."

She shifts her urn into position, its rim cutting into her fingers.

Schwartz sees this, as she sees her tiredness before the fight has even begun. "You know you have no chance of victory. Surrender yourself so you do not prolong your suffering and that of the world."

"I will not." Tired though she may be, she will not move. "I believe in the humans of this world. I will not forsake them."

"Then you are a fool. It has been long since we were called to a world this devoid of hope." Schwartz's double-headed axe with its opposing sun and moon appears in her hand. "I will not allow the people to exist in the shadow of hatred any longer." She lowers to the ground. "It is now the appointed time."

Grune takes in a breath and summons to her mind the faces of the ones who have become dear to her, in the Capitol and District 13.

She raises her hand to begin her first spell.

*

Katniss is alone now.

There's no one left except her, but that doesn't matter. She's made it to the City Circle. Snow's mansion rises above all other buildings, its size and luxury still one more threat. It's nothing she fears—a simple building can't possibly scare her now.

What she fears instead are the pods, and what will be the fate of the Capitol children caged before the mansion.

Her need to kill Snow is all she has left to keep her on her feet; if she stops, she will collapse into grief and never rise again. But despite her vital purpose, she doesn't want to let children die to reach Snow, not even Capitol children. She can't waver here: she has to keep going, one way or another.

But, as it turns out, there is no choice for her to make.

She hears the sound of a hovercraft and looks up. Silver parachutes are dropping from the sky. Attached to them are boxes that drift down to the starving, frostbitten children. She watches as the children run to the relief packets. Would she have time to sneak past now, while the guards were distracted?

When the explosions begin, the square is instantly chaos, a hell of screams from observers and dying children alike. People fall to the ground with the force of the blast or the force of their despair only to be trampled by others rushing toward or away from what must be a scene of slaughter. She can't see and it's a mercy. She's completely disoriented; the seething mass of people and the black smoke from the explosions make it impossible to get her bearings.

Her disorientation only increases when one of the people she sees flash by is her sister. Prim is dressed in the uniform of a rebel medic, and how had that happened? Why is she here? Prim dreams of becoming a medic, Katniss knows, but she's far too young—though not too young to pass her coat to a child and drop to her knees beside another small boy whose arm has been blown off. She begins tying a tourniquet with professional calm.

At least, Katniss thinks that's what she's doing. The smoke makes figuring out what she's seeing a matter of guesswork. It has yet to dissipate; if anything, it seems to be thickening.

She freezes, her hand clenching around the bitterly cold metal of the flagpole she's fastened herself to. It isn't smoke—it's fog. It's Schwartz's fog. That means Grune. . . .

Katniss leaps to the ground. She runs, she opens her mouth and sucks in black-tainted air to scream her sister's name—

There is a roar and and terrible pressure and heat that burns her to her bones and nothing at all.

*

Schwartz jerks the tip of her axe free and Grune collapses to the ground. Her blood streams away, channelled into the stones of the square. She scrapes her arm along the grit of them, shaking, searching for her urn. It has rolled beyond her grasp.

Dispassionately observing, Schwartz stands before her. Grune can see only the tips of her black boots (and even those are wavering in and out of focus), but she knows how Schwartz is looking at her, because this has happened before, and happened before, and happened before. It is futile to struggle and she has no hope of victory with her life on this world washing away with every dying beat of her heart, but still she will not cease trying to stand.

"It is over," she hears Schwartz say, her voice now returned to detachment from the passion of battle. "Stop your foolishness, Grune, and accept what is to be. It is time for you to fade from this world and for me to play the melody of the end."

Grune tries to swallow and speak, but her tongue is trapped against the top of her mouth. The blackness is claiming her vision. Still she raises her chin one final time, to see that Schwartz's axe has vanished. She cannot make out what she now holds, but she does not need to see it to know it is the ancient flute Schwartz has always used to carry out her duties as the Guide to Nothingness.

Grune's head falls to what will be stone for only a short time longer, her sight faded entirely. As she hears Schwartz take in her first breath, the last escapes her, and as it whispers away, Panem is lost.

*

Grune is whole again when she next opens her eyes. She stands, unscarred and undamaged, under a blue sky. She has new knowledge now, in preparation for the fight that is to come for this world upon which she stands.

She is undamaged in body, but in spirit, she grieves. There is no Panem, no Katniss, no Finnick, no Peeta, no Coin or Plutarch or Snow. There never has been. There never will be. That world has not existed in all of time, and neither has its people. Only its vanished possibility remains in her memory, and in Schwartz's.

She will remember them, those people who never were. They will be given life in her memory—the one place where she can still protect them.

Grune bows her head and closes her eyes. Then she looks up, to the city that lies ahead. She will remember them, but she will not allow their ending to endanger the people she has yet to meet on this world.

She will remember them. And this time, she will not lose.