Work Text:
I.
The crowd’s initial alarm at our appearance quickly changes to cheers and shouts of “District Twelve!” Every head is turned our way, pulling the focus from the three chariots ahead of us. At first, I’m frozen, but then I catch sight of us on a large television screen and am floored by how breathtaking we look. In the deepening twilight, the firelight illuminates our faces. We seem to be leaving a trail of fire off the flowing capes. — Chapter 5, The Hunger Games
Coriolanus Snow did not believe in ghosts.
Believing in ghosts required a certain level of credulous faith, and Snow was not the type of man to go about life blindfolded. Besides, in the years that followed the Dark Days, the Capitol made it a point to ban all paraphernalia related to religions. Religions promoted hope. Too much hope is what led to the start of Panem’s First Rebellion.
One or two districts still believed in old gods, but they were never so devout that the government had seen the need to intervene. Most districts were too busy, too jaded to question what happened after death.
And so the concept of ghosts became nothing but that— a concept, fanciful and effective in keeping children in order.
Snow had never believed in the stories his late Grandma’am tried to scare him with.
But he found himself remembering them all the same as the chariot of the District 12 tributes came to a screeching halt at the City Circle.
He wondered if the female tribute, Katniss Everdeen, was named after the swamp potatoes that grew along the lake outside her district.
She was a volunteer. Snow knew that much. It had set the Capitol abuzz, considering how rare volunteering was in the outer districts. As more information began to trickle in, the citizens began to sympathize. The female tribute from District 12 volunteered to take her sister’s place. How loving! How selfless!
How utterly foolish, Snow had thought.
Though perhaps it was for the best. There was already a 12-year-old tribute from District 11. Having one too many children in the games made people uneasy, made them prone to sentimentality and outrage.
The prompter in Snow’s ear let out a low-pitched ringing noise. Seneca Crane’s smooth voice said, “President Snow, you’re live.”
Snow stepped up to the balcony of the Presidential mansion and raised a hand. “Welcome,” he boomed, but the crowd was still going wild for this year’s spectacle that was District 12.
They were never exceptional in the past. Always in some kind of coal miner’s getup, in skimpy outfits with headlamps as hats. This year, though, the two tributes sported fluttering capes of orange, yellow, and red, with matching headdresses. Their stylists had gone a step further by setting them on fire.
In Katniss’ hand, she held a single red rose that she’d probably snatched up from the crowd-lined streets.
This was Snow’s personal ghost story— 12’s tribute bearing a rose. 12’s tribute being the center of attention. Little too early yet, she’d said, then, about the katniss with small tubers.
Snow supposed that now was the right time for Katniss.
In a firmer voice, he called out, “Welcome!”
The crowd finally calmed. Snow smiled. He delivered his well-rehearsed official welcome, making sure to spare glances at each chariot. His speech was coming to a close when his eyes land back on District 12’s tributes; the undisputed, blazing stars of the night.
Snow wasn’t worried. Almost all of the District 12 tributes went down at the Bloodbath, anyway.
“Happy Hunger Games,” said Snow. “And may the odds be ever in your favor.”
II.
Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight at the Gamemakers’ table. I hear shouts of alarm as people stumble back. The arrow skewers the apple in the pig’s mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at me in disbelief.
“Thank you for your consideration, ” I say. Then I give a slight bow and walk straight toward the exit without being dismissed. — Chapter 7, The Hunger Games
“An eleven?”
“She earned it,” Seneca said.
The Head Gamemaker’s nonchalance exasperated Snow. “She shot an arrow at your head,” the president said, deadpan.
“Well, at an apple.”
“Near your head,” said Snow.
He snipped a thorn from one of the roses he had picked. Seneca and him were in his garden, discussing the recent training scores after the tributes’ private sessions.
Seneca didn’t look like he understood why Snow was so frustrated. The latter made some space on the stone bench he was on and beckoned, “Sit down.”
The younger man complied.
“Seneca, why do you think we have a winner?” Snow asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean— why do we have a winner? If we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up 24 of them at random and execute them all at once? It would be a lot faster.”
A beat. Seneca looked like he was genuinely trying to come up with a sufficient answer. Snow hated that he could practically see the gears turning in the Gamemaker’s brain. Had he really entrusted the games to someone so incompetent this year?
“Hope,” said Snow after a moment.
“Hope?” Seneca repeated uncertainly.
“It’s the only thing stronger than fear,” confirmed Snow. “A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”
“So…?”
Must I feed this man everything?, Snow thought with a twinge of annoyance.
He wanted to talk about a time where there were no training sessions, no Tribute Parades. Where the only thing the tributes had going for them was a derelict monkey enclosure in the Capitol Zoo and the barebones of a televised interview.
A time where the idea of ‘sponsorships’ was still novel. A time where only one tribute knew how to play that game. She was a true performer who played everyone for fools. She knew exactly what Panem needed: A damn good show. And that’s what she gave them. That’s how she got to go home.
Snow said none of that. Instead, he rose to Seneca’s bait. “So contain it,” the president commanded. Strike one.
Seneca and Snow find themselves in the president’s rose garden once more, somewhere midway into the games.
“You like an underdog?” asked Snow. He frowned slightly, mostly to himself. Some of his roses would be needing a little more fertilizer.
“Everyone likes an underdog,” said Seneca.
“I don’t,” Snow replied curtly. His one tribute had not been an underdog. He went on, “Have you been out there? 10? 11? 12?”
“Not personally, no.”
“I have. There are lots of underdogs. Lots of coal, too. Grow crops, minerals, things we need. There are lots of underdogs.”
Snow thought of his bunkmates from a different lifetime; Junius, Smiley, Bug. Sejanus Plinth. He quickly banished the memories of the bunk beds and metal lockers. Of the Peacekeeper base that he demolished in one of his first acts as president.
“And I think if you could see them,” Snow told Seneca. “You would not root for them either.” Strike two.
Seneca was looking increasingly unnerved, but he still stood his ground with exceptional resolve. Snow had to give credit where credit was due.
“I like you,” he told the Gamemaker. “Be careful.”
It was too bad that Seneca was never a soldier. Maybe if he had been for even just a few months, then he might have recognized when a marching order was being given.
III.
The anthem’s playing yet again and we rise as President Snow himself takes the stage followed by a little girl carrying a cushion that holds the crown. There’s just one crown, though, and you can hear the crowd’s confusion — whose head will he place it on? — until President Snow gives it a twist and it separates into two halves. He places the first around Peeta’s brow with a smile. He’s still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just inches from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake’s. — Chapter 21, The Hunger Games
“Congratulations,” Snow told Katniss Everdeen benevolently.
Her half of the Victor’s crown shimmered underneath the lights. She was a wisp of a thing, dressed in a sleeveless dress of sheer fabric. Not quite the girl on fire, as she was often called in the Capitol. More of a candlelight.
Still a spark. Still a flame. Still something that Snow needed extinguished.
Because Peeta Mellark was a fool who was in love, sure, but the girl in front of him couldn’t act smitten if her life depended on it.
Still, she was not stupid. “Thank you,” she answered graciously.
Something glinted over her chest. Snow gently pushed aside her hair to better see what it was.
The show’s not over until the mockingjay sings.
“What a lovely pin,” said Snow through gritted teeth.
“Thank you. It’s from my district.”
Of course District 12 would have a token of the mutation that was beyond the Capitol’s control. Snow made a mental note to award Peacekeepers who could eliminate as much of the species as possible.
Snow settled on saying, “They must be very proud of you.”
The District’s first female Victor, he almost added, but his voice caught like barbed wire in his throat. There would be little room for Katniss to correct him if she knew any better.
But he found that he couldn’t lie to her.
Rather, he couldn’t lie to himself.
IV.
“I know. I will. I’ll convince everyone in the districts that I wasn’t defying the Capitol, that I was crazy with love,” I say.
President Snow rises and dabs his puffy lips with a napkin.
“Aim higher in case you fall short.”
“What do you mean? How can I aim higher?” I ask.
“Convince me,” he says. — Chapter 2, Catching Fire
“She’s not who they think she is,” said Snow disapprovingly. He eyed his holographic display with distaste. The report contained images of dissent across the districts. In each of them, they bore some iconography of a mockingjay.
Her symbol, once. Something they shared. Now Katniss Everdeen’s. Now everyone else’s.
It made Snow’s skin crawl. He had never liked to share.
“She’s not a leader,” continued Snow. “She just wanted to save her own skin. It’s as simple as that.”
He was referring to Katniss. He could have easily been referring to someone he once knew, too.
“I think that’s true,” the new Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, said diplomatically.
“She’s become a beacon of hope for the rebellion and she has to be eliminated.”
Plutarch nodded. “I agree she should die, but in the right way; at the right time. It’s moves and countermoves. That’s all we gotta look at. Katniss Everdeen is a symbol, the mockingjay. They think she’s one of them. We need to show that she’s one of us. We don’t need to destroy her, just the image. Then we let the people do the rest.”
Snow raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “What do you propose?”
“Shut down the black markets,” Plutarch said, his tone a tad too enthusiastic for Snow’s taste. “Take away what little they have, then double the amount of floggings and executions. Put them on television. Broadcast them live. Sow fear, more fear.”
Snow shook his head. How did he go from dealing with someone as spineless as Seneca to plotting with someone as eccentric as Plutarch?
“It won’t work,” the president said. “Fear does not work as long as they have hope, and Katniss Everdeen is giving them hope.”
“She’s engaged,” Plutarch pressed. “Make everything about that. What kind of dress is going to wear? Floggings. What’s the cake gonna look like? Executions. Who’s gonna be there? Fear.”
Plutarch paused, chuckled darkly, then stirred the sugar in the bottom of his black coffee.
Snow’s mind wandered a bit. The last thing she’d ever said to him was Well, I’m not made of sugar.
He’s snapped back to the present when Plutarch expounds, “Blanket coverage. Shove it in their faces. Show them she’s one of us now. They’re gonna hate her so much, they might just kill her for you.”
Now Plutarch was thinking like a Gamemaker, Snow privately conceded. He was proposing a ruse, a distraction. A way to fan the flames in a different direction.
The mockingjay is singing, the president thought to himself. And its show will be over soon.
Snow gave Plutarch a rare smile. “Brilliant,” he breathed, and Plutarch smiled back.
V.
I’m in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it’s the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that’s when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings.
Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay. — Chapter 18, Catching Fire
Caesar Flickerman stammered through his reaction. His babble was barely audible over the roaring sounds of the Capitol’s standing ovation. “It’s a bird— It’s like a— It’s got feathers! It’s like— It’s like a—”
Katniss helped him. “Like a mockingjay,” she offered.
She was not looking at Caesar, though. She was staring at someone offscreen.
“Your stylist has certainly outdone himself this time, hasn’t he?” squealed Caesar. The camera panned to the man of the hour. “What theatricality! Cinna, take a bow.”
Snow watched it unfold. He closed his book and memorized the stylist’s face.
Then, he picked up his landline and dialed a number. His conversation with the Capitol Head Peacekeeper lasted not more than five minutes. The latter knew better than to question the president, after all.
The call ended just in time for Snow to see the Victor-tributes join hands. He observed, bemused and displeased, as the twenty-four stood in one unbroken line. In the back of his mind, a quiet voice hummed.
Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.
Snow pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed to talk to Plutarch again.
VI.
“Want to hear them do a real song?” I burst out. Anything to stop those memories. I’m on my feet, moving back into the trees, resting my hand on the rough trunk of a maple where the birds perch. I have not sung “The Hanging Tree” out loud for ten years, because it’s forbidden, but I remember every word. I begin softly, sweetly, as my father did. — Chapter 9, Mockingjay
The lights flickered off in Snow’s mansion.
He blinked once, then twice. Outside his door, he could hear sounds of activity. The rest of the household was just as confused as he was.
He stumbled over to the window and saw that the entirety of the Capitol had fallen into darkness.
That same evening, a handful of government officials showed up at his door with an official report. The opposition had broadcast a new form of propaganda, they reported. It is likely why District 5 rebels were emboldened enough to bomb the hydroelectric dam funneling power to the Capitol.
When they hit play on the footage of the alleged propo, Snow’s blood ran cold.
Are you, are you coming to the tree where they strung up a man they say murdered three?
Suddenly, he was in District 12 again. Her voice was lifting suddenly and sweetly into the air.
Are you, are you coming to the tree where the dead man called out for his love to flee?
The woods had burst to life with dozens of melodies. The very same tune was haunting him over seven decades later. Cruelly, Snow found himself thinking that Katniss’ voice was pleasant enough, sure, but she was no Covey.
Are you, are you coming to the tree where I told you to run, so we'd both be free?
Snow couldn’t imagine what kind of person he might have been if he’d stayed on the run. Would they have lasted long? Were they destined to betray each other? None of it mattered, of course.
He was exactly who he was meant to be. And she was dead.
She had to be.
Are you, are you coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of hope, side by side with me.
They changed the words, Snow thought numbly. They rewrote the only thing that was left of Sejanus Plinth.
Snow was grateful for the darkness. It did wonders for concealing his expression and the quiver in his hands. If he had to listen to the song in any other condition, the light might have cast him in a shade that was unforgiving.
“This was broadcast in every district?” asked Snow. His voice didn’t sound like his own.
“Yes, Mister President,” one of the secretaries answered. “It was broadcast everywhere except the Capitol.”
Snow didn’t know if that was intentional or not. He didn’t care.
He chose to do what he knew to do best; be President of Panem.
Release more propaganda, he commanded. Utilize Peeta Mellark. Find a way into District 13’s systems. Boost the Capitol’s defenses.
And wipe all records of propaganda featuring the song about the hanging tree.
Execute on sight anyone who dare sing it.
“Spare no one,” Snow said wretchedly.
VII.
The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. — Chapter 26, Mockingjay
Coriolanus Snow laughed.
He laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He laughed so heartily that he thought it might kill him.
And it did, eventually, because the laughter gave way to coughing, and the coughing spewed out the blood.
Snow hadn’t taken any of his antidotes in days. The lack of relief irritated the open sores in his mouth. Eventually, there was too much blood and not enough air.
But, right before that, Snow had a front row seat to Katniss Everdeen’s best performance yet. It was, quite literally, to die for.
Snow’s last thought before it all went dark was, Lucy Gray would be proud.