288Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #36: The Panemian Council, where we are officially starting off the epilogues that'll eventually bring about the end of Slaughterverse, something I am still reeling from having written all of that so quickly, cause I didn't expect to be at the end already. Last chapter, the Phoenix Rebellion came to an end with Valencia shooting Constantine in the Gamemaker Center, Amaris with Vivian and Ponty holding back a Peacekeeper patrol in pursuit, and Rennie's verbal showdown with Bonnie atop the balcony where it had all began... and now we're here, with the survivors to pick up the pieces. Every surviving character gets one single pov each, two for this chapter, four in 37, and four in 38, a mix of tribute and Capitol characters for 37 and 38, this again from just two Capitol character perspectives. It has been a ride that is near the finish line, so I do hope you enjoy Chapter #36: The Panemian Council.
~ And so sayeth the Lord, one day I will call a humble shepherd out of the flock to lead my people, when I have set down the cane and the amble, and am unable to move another step. He is to be your Moses, your Joshua, your Messiah.
Criston Pellock: Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games P.O.V
Tinkering away at something beneath him on a table, Criston forgets to blink, sucked into the world of machinery and batteries and the low swinging light above his head that creaks on its chain every few seconds. He only remembers to blink when the agony in his head begins to build, like someone stabbing an ice pick between his nose and frontal lobe. He blinks, wiping away remnants of sleep that have clung onto his skin with a rubber-like grip. He hasn't slept in twenty four hours, but he's used to staying up after all, so this is nothing for him to worry about. Besides, it's important. His fingers ache and sometimes he has to clench them in pain from the shards of glass he had clutched when tripping over a shattered door, slicing his ankle open, the bandages bleeding the color of a ruby sunset as Ciphra helps him up.
Valencia is sobbing in the center of the floor when he and Ciphra find her, next to Constantine's dead body, a spilling sea of cardinal marking up the tile, the victor practically bathing in it, but he does not dare ask her how much might've gotten in her mouth, and Valencia doesn't seem to feel up to talking by the way she's gone silent. It has been quite a tumultuous thirty-six hours, Rennie awake by the time Pollux finds him on top of the balcony at the presidential mansion, half the grounds on fire with the fighting in the streets, but soon into the day he falls unconscious, lips forming words without sound, Criston finding it rather creepy to be looming over him to see what he's mouthing.
Pollux is the one who is the most upset by the findings, as Lance and Hale scourge the streets looking for survivors and Capitol citizens to rouse out of their homes... it is Hale who finds Bonnie's body, if it can even be called a body at this point. Criston is sure the victor spits on her, just to rub it in some that she's alive and the blonde witch is dead, but he still looks away, unable to take the charred wisps of bright colored hair out of his mind... they are wisps, indeed, representing curved tree branches or a witch's claws. The tributes, the four surviving tributes - a failed mission, when Rennie wishes to keep all twenty-four alive, but Criston knows that is only a fool's dream to try and keep that alive, losses in war are inevitable - are holed up in separate rooms in the mansion, and despite the girl's allegiances, Pollux and Valencia have to call on Amaris O'Hara several times while Ciphra is out speaking to the districts, the only potentially famous kid left for her words to have any weight.
Criston looks up from his work table, which is truthfully just a sink with a small bit of counterspace in the room he's in, eyes going to the medical bed in the corner of the room, the body in the corner starting to stir. The lights on the wall, a dim and lowly lit halcyon color create shadows on the wall in that corner of the room, a gigantic black mass of limbs and unrecognizable shapes shifting in the sky as Rennie Davis, the surviving leader of the Phoenix Rebellion, sits up. He's dressed in a darker ensemble of simple pants and a see through shirt showing his pale skin, hair as red as the still burning fires in the streets, but it is Rennie, no matter how battle damaged he might seem to be. The avox lets out light sigh of pain, his collarbone wrapped in gauze from the stab wound, he trying to swing his legs over the edge before falling back onto his injured shoulder, yelping slightly.
"Hey, you're awake!" Criston exclaims, and then rushes over to him, setting down his tools against the object he is working on. He presses a hand onto Rennie's good shoulder, holding him up behind his left with his hand, until the avox is in a sitting position. "Ooh, easy, easy, easy. I got you." The man feels thin, extremely thin and exhausted, if someone is capable of feeling exhaustion. However, despite whatever someone might want to think, this is the man who led them through the darkness, and did a whole lot more than that.
Rennie's bright blue eyes search his surroundings, falling on the victor's face, momentarily lighting up as his brow furrows together. "Criston?" he signs quickly, Criston able to make out just a few of the letters in the rapid fire succession. It is something that Lance had sent him, a book on Panemian Sign Language, but with all the hours Criston spends waking up from nightmares where he's boiled alive in a vat of acid, or working on getting the materials for the bullets to go instead the guns... it is something that falls to the wayside, though he has been getting better.
"Hey, Rennie. How are you feeling?" Criston smiles sweetly, removing himself from Rennie's personal space, taking a step back, his feet echoing around the chamber. It is not a large room, a twelve by twelve foot hospital wing with a gross olive colored tile to match the pale walls, but it is has been Rennie's home lately. All Criston knows if that someone were to ask him the question of how he would be feeling waking up in such a nightmarish place, the answer would be sharply devastating... pissed and upset.
"Like my body is on fire and I just died." Rennie smirks somewhat after signing it, placing his right hand on his left shoulder, setting it back somewhat.
"We almost thought you were a goner too, honestly," Criston gives a slight laugh, for the tension in the room he could feel soaking into his ankles. "You were out for almost a day. Pollux is the one who found you; it almost drove him into hysterics." He doesn't need to say it aloud, for he knows that Rennie knows what he did. Pollux claims that their fearless leader had been crying something out, an estranged sound trying to break free in his throat turning it raw, the man clawing his way out of the interviewer's grip to try and vault himself over the balcony into the fire below, but there are no words to try and explain his actions, Pollux is sobbing and trying to keep Rennie at bay, and the man brings himself to exhaustion for it seems to go on for forever.
"What- what happened?"
Criston runs a hand through his hair, resting against a far wall, the tile cool on his back, causing his skin to bristle with goosebumps. "We won," his throat is dry, he licking his lips while Rennie raises an eyebrow, the man looking down at his feet, which are clothed in wool socks to keep them warm, as it is a bit frigid in the room they've kept him. There is an argument made, Criston forgetting who makes it, that Rennie should be given the biggest room in the mansion to be holed up in, but there are many other injured parties to tend to, and Pollux relents the control of where Rennie goes for recovery. "It's over, Rennie. The rebellion." Just a week ago, Criston recalls telling Lance to not get his hopes up in the fact that there would be a rebellion in the first place, but once again, the man with bright red hair proves to know a trick up his sleeve or two.
Rennie takes a look around the room, frowning. "Where- where are we?"
"In the mansion, one of the hospital wings underground," Criston sticks himself off of the wall, pushing his body with his palms. "I know it's a bit smaller and more cramped than I was hoping for initially, but I needed to be here when you woke up."
"What happened?" he asks again.
"A rather complicated answer if you ask me," Criston purses his lips, frowning, biting down on his lower lip. He supposes there's no easy way to say it, in case there are any moments of uncertainty and doubt lying around with the situation. "She's gone, Rennie. Her body was found lying just beneath the mansion's terrace in a burnt rosebush, body almost so burnt where you couldn't even recognize it, a burnt knife stuck under her ribcage..." Rennie's hands go to his neck, squeezing the base of his throat, eyes slightly bulging out of his head, fingers brushing over an obstruction attached to the base of his windpipe, it almost hidden out of sight underneath the outfit he has on, but if the avox makes any move to show that he notices it, there's nothing. "Constantine was found dead in the Gamemaker Center with Valencia's crying body next to her, and Lazarus Pietro was found dead in the prison cells..." Criston plucks the name off of his tongue with a pop, lips pursing at the sound. "With them gone, it means our resistance couldn't be resisted any longer."
Rennie locks eyes with the victor, a shiver sliding down Criston's back. A look of haunted remembrance in the man's gaze, he signing his next statement slowly, almost as if he is incapable of bringing the very thought to light. "And- and her daughter? What of her?"
Criston smiles wryly, lips pressed together. It is very diplomatic of him to be worried about the child, and it might sound awful in his head, but it is nothing to Criston, about the girl. He wishes her no harm, but it is not a bullet point on his own list of what would make the rebellion a success or not. "She's fine, Rennie. The nursery wing of the mansion was left untouched," he goes back to the work table, grabbing the tool he had been working on in his left hand, knocking a few random bits and pieces into the trash. "Hale and her daughter Arianne are currently looking after her right now, with a few of the mansion's maids."
"What happened after?" There's a look of relief on Rennie's face after the mention of the girl being safe, but as to why, Criston is not sure. He did not know the avox personally before most of this began, before there are grumblings from the previous Head Gamemaker of there being the end of the Games, that information only privy to a select few, but then everything else explodes out of his hand with deaths of officials he would've never cared about in the first place, and Rennie's name continues to pop up in the social circle... Criston is proud to say that there is nothing stopping him or holding him back any longer to see their Phoenix for the true bird out of the ashes that he is, the wonderful man he is with a heart of gold, and the one who'd do what needed to be done, such as apparently pushing the president off of a balcony.
After. What a weird word, Criston saying it to himself in his head. After he electrocuted the last few surviving tributes in his arena - the Gamemakers need to learn their lesson and stop doing arenas with a beach or water, someone is going to exploit that little flaw every single time, yet there is surprise passed around whenever that happens, as if these folks do not learn - his after is Criston holding his body tight while his knees dig into the dirt of the cornucopia, having hidden in the farthest corner of the horn armed with a single silver knife, counting the cannon fire in his head, repeating the number over and over again even after Pollux's voice announces him as the victor. The after, after, when he is the helicopter and the syringe slips to just below his arm, he's thinking of how much blood he's shed, and how his parents will never hug him again.
What can the after be for a city completely torn apart? A nation flipped upside down and dumped into a volcano?
"After," Criston repeats aloud this time, patting his leg with his hand. "The fighting in the districts was starting to wean down from a few of the sources we had who could tell us what was happening, some getting on lockdown, others where rebels would be fighting back against the Capitol, and since Bonnie didn't have the resources to send Peacekeepers to and from, the forces there had to surrender. It required a mix of Ciphra, Pollux, Valencia, Ponty, and Amaris doing their part, though I think it was Pollux who did the most damage," he rubs his brow with his fingers, assuaging a headache starting to bloom in the center of his forehead. "Many of the districts didn't see the video that Bonnie made that night calling us all to the mansion, so many people took Pollux's word as the word."
Rennie frowns to himself, signing again. "Amaris?"
"A surprise for sure, but a welcomed one," Criston's throat is scratchy, he needing a drink. Telling Lance Viel that he believed both of his tributes to be both lost causes to the rebellion, but here they were, helping bring hostilities to an end. "We needed someone with a little bit of power to help us on both sides. Amaris O'Hara is the only surviving Peacekeeper I could find who wasn't trying to shoot me, and we found her, with Ponty and Vivian keeping a legion back... that girl did it somehow, Rennie," he picks at a scab on his knuckle. Rennie's hands have placed themselves on the sides of his makeshift bed, pushing the thin sheet that had covered his body over to the side. "After Pollux told the nation what had transpired, she said that all the Peacekeepers needed to set their weapons down. She didn't sound bad about it, she simply said that it was the right thing to do."
"Where is she now?"
"There were some debates about that, too," Criston says, going from picking at the scab to running his pointer fingers over his thumbs. It is a debate that has Criston divided, with Ponty's testament to the gathered victors and Pollux of what apparently Amaris has done while being in service to Bonnie and Lazarus, and there are moments where the girl fills in the missing puzzle pieces, causing Vivian, Ciphra, and Ponty to stare the girl down into silence, but Pollux decides that for the best of everyone involved with all the tragedy that has befallen them to not touch the subject until Rennie's awoken. "Right now all four tributes are in the mansion, staying in quarters not destroyed. We've all taken up space in the mansion, actually, and there are quarters for you as well," he picks something off the wall, it being a cane, handing it to the avox who grabs it gingerly, almost as if it'll explode as well when given to him. "We don't have a lot of time, as we both have places we need to be at, but this is in case you can't get around as easily."
"Thank you," Rennie smiles briefly, testing out the cane, it being painted entirely in black with a glinting silver handle at the top of it, it making a clunking noise on the tile. Criston turns his back to the man, going back to the work table, holding the device he had been making the final few touches on into his palm, pausing in the doorway of the hospital room, waiting. He smiles to himself for a moment, as he knows sooner than later Rennie will find out, for he's already brushed up against it once while talking to him. He takes another step out of the door when Rennie's hand falls on his shoulder, it being a gentle touch, a velvety kind of motion, the victor turning back around with a raised eyebrow, trying to keep the smirk threatening to break free lowered at a minimum. "What's this?" Rennie signs back to him, his fingers pressed up against a small black device pressed into his throat, the man looking at himself in the mirror, lips parted. The square looks like a Velcro patch to attach pockets to one another, Criston simply waiting till the man would acknowledge its existence.
It is going to sound strange, for Criston knows it will even as he thinks it to himself in private, that it is good the man had been asleep or otherwise the surgery would most likely not have happened. "While you were unconscious, I showed Pollux something I had been working on," Criston reaches into his pocket, handing Rennie the device he pulls out of it, a sleek black remote the same color as the patch, a single button the color of snow in the center, Rennie rubbing his thumb over it, back and forth. "Pollux didn't want to put you into surgery, but I was unable to grab the device from my quarters before all of this started, and I wanted to keep it a secret..." Criston pats his pants with his palms, they starting to sweat as Rennie looks over the remote. "It is something your sister had me create, shortly after she freed you." Rennie looks up at the mention of Lewlyn, a mistiness in his eyes. "I didn't really know who you were at the time she asked me, since you were just an avox then, but if the Head Gamemaker comes to me with a project, you do what she says."
"What is it?"
"It's a speaker," Criston smiles lightly, putting one hand into his pocket. "The surgery was attaching the patch to your throat, which acts as a sensor... think of it like a bandage that is always there," he licks his lips in anticipation. "With the remote, it listens to your brain waves, and if you press the button on the remote, it'll vocalize your thoughts."
Rennie's eyes widen instantaneously, he almost dropping the remote. That wouldn't be good for the market or all of his scientific progress, Criston supposes. "What?"
"You can speak, Rennie," Criston smiles larger this time, to the point where his cheeks are starting to hurt, for the man is practically vibrating like a newborn child with excitement, tears welling up in his eyes. "I tried to program your voice as perfectly as I could from the few clips I found of you speaking after old violin concerts and all, but I think I eventually had to make a voice that wasn't your own," he rubs the back of his head, his smile turning sheepish. "I'm sorry on that front, cause I know how foreign it'll be to hear a different voice saying what you're thinking, but, well..." he sighs exasperatedly. "It's a prototype, and I can always make adjustments and help, but I have tested it on myself before, and it does work," a single tear slides down the victor's cheek, which surprises him, for he's never considered himself overtly emotional to then start crying about something. "Lewlyn wanted to give you more happiness than she thought she could, and never told you about it as-"
He doesn't get to finish the statement as Rennie crosses the remainder of the room to throw his arms around him in a hug. Criston chokes on a bubble of surprise, hands posed just above Rennie's shoulders, before laying them into the hug, Rennie squeezing him tight. When the two men retract, there are tears in the Avox's eyes, his face flushed, several droplets sliding down his cheeks in crystal rivers. He presses the button on the remote with his thumb, and then, shortly after that, after about a two or so second delay, "Thank you," aloud, coming from the device attached at his throat. The voice that speaks is male, a suave tone to it, a posh kind after Criston listens to a few picks of Capitolites speaking, there being a similar rhythm to the words like when Calhoun Rodney would speak.
Rennie looks at the device in his hands, at the magic of what science just accomplished, pride flowing in Criston's veins. He just helped an Avox speak. It took him about a year to design the device, and had Lewlyn's constant badgering also breathing down his neck alongside it, but if he can do it for one, who is to say he couldn't do it for all of them, especially if he had a bit of help? He knew from what Ciphra mentioned about her family and the robot he had helped design, the Longsdale's would be more than capable... a light bulb going off in his head.
He's made history here, he and Rennie both shattering open the gates of progress, rushing into the breach with their arms holding up signs of their prowess, Rennie putting the remote in his pocket.
"You're welcome, Rennie," Criston's voice cracks, patting him on the shoulder. "I think it is time you deserve some happiness in this world, don't you?" Rennie nods his head silently in agreement, tears still flowing free, he wiping at his eyes with his free hand, smiling. Criston looks down at his shoes, scuffing them on the tile as they make a squeaking noise. "In an hour Pollux needs you to meet him in the conference room on the third floor, okay?"
"I'll be there," comes the voice again, Rennie repeating his reaction one more time with amazement in his eyes. It is something that the man might never grow accustomed to, but frankly, Criston knows that there is a freedom involved in getting your voice back, something he knows nothing about and something he hopes to never be an expert on in the subject.
"Good," he smiles back in earnest. "Good. I'll see you then, Mr. Davis," Criston nods his head in a goodbye, before turning to leave out of the room.
It is hard for him to resist to do a fist pump to himself in celebration.
The new era of Panem might start to look bright for all the things considered.
Rennie Davis: Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion P.O.V
His entire body is in a buzz, that is the only way he knows how to describe it. The remote in his pocket sits there like a pot of gold found at the end of the rainbow, Rennie smiling to himself as he pats it with his free hand, the other holding onto the other end of the cane Criston provided for him. It is nearing noon, two days since he had pushed Bonnie off of the balcony into the fires of the rebellion below, the thought causing him to pause briefly, just for a second with a slight frown. If this had been his future, to have this device to help him speak, he is certain that there is no way she'd have been happy about it, and would've forbidden him from using it, since it is an idea that would've come from his sister and not her, as that is what would make Bonnie jealous. Sunlight streams through some of the windows, they open wide to allow more happiness to filter into the mansion, the building having felt soaked in melancholy and guarded defenses lately, Rennie taking a deep breath as he climbed the second flight of stairs, the same flight of stairs that Amaris O'Hara sends him up with her commandeering voice.
She's alive, which he supposes is a good thing, despite the fact that she had been fighting for the enemy right up until the end, but he knows what it is like to support the wrong person willingly, a bitter backsplash hitting his throat that he swallows down with a grimace. He makes his way to the third floor, climbing up the last set of stairs, these stairs wider than the ones on the first two floors and sculpted entirely out of marble. Initially, as he's read it somewhere in a dusty book in the library that no one might not even use, the presidential mansion had originally had only been two floors, but again, during the reigns of Emrick Israel and Cain Passionia, the two men decided to expand upon the grounds and add a third floor, though Rennie is unsure of its purpose, for he's never been up to the third level before. The floor is changed from tile to carpet when he makes his way up to it, a lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the center. Looking to his left, as he reaches the top, his grip on the cane firm as can be, Rennie sees that there's a bit of the mansion that is destroyed, the roof slightly caved in, several Peacekeepers and a servant – not one dressed in avox garb, he has to make the distinction clear, as he hasn't seen a single avox on his entire walk up from the basement medicinal wing – pushing away some rocks.
The conference room that Criston tells him to head to in an hour after their conversation sits in front of him through a pair of double doors, wide oak doors that stretch from the ceiling to the floor, gilded doorknobs the color of freshly reaped corn sparkling in the sunlight from the massive windows that adorn the far wall as he makes his way up the winding staircase. However, that does not draw Rennie towards the doors, he looking to his right, lips pursed as he takes sight of what covers the right side of the wall, they luckily not covered in any sort of dust from bombardments in the sky.
He takes a step towards the right side of the double doors, eyes wide as he takes in the sight of a picture of his sister sitting in a silver frame, the picture about half the size of the door, and if he looks behind him at the wall connected to the staircase he came up from, there are more pictures hanging there, a picture just about the size of the wall there, Rennie looking away as quick as he can to stare back at the painting of Lewlyn. She's sitting at a table, hands poised together with fingers interlocked between one another, her hands resting on the table, her auburn hair tied into a bun with frizzy locks dancing on both sides, she dressed in her Gamemaker uniform, a cloak of white and gray with a silver brooch of Panem's long just above her breast. She's smiling, legitimately smiling, Rennie tilting his head to the side. He has no idea when the painting would've been created, but given that she's in her Gamemaker outfit, it must've been during her tenure.
Rennie takes a step forward up to the painting, resting one hand on the outer edge of the frame, closing his eyes, and resting his head against it. "Look what happened to us," he voices aloud with the remote, his body shuddering at the noise, for there doesn't seem to be a very good volume control to it, and if there is one, Criston did not mention it down below. "To think where we started, and where we are now…" he looks up at the painting, his heart beating in his chest. No matter what the world or others want to think of her, she's his sister, and she's stolen from her before the two could ever truly be happy. She might've done horrible things in the beginning, but the last leg of her life had been spent trying to fix all of those wrongs everyone else deemed to be irrevocable… Rennie's heart will forever be grateful.
"I miss you…" he whispers, and if Rennie were to look at the painting just so it'd almost come to him as if she were life like in front of him. "I think you'd be- you'd be proud of what I've done, and I did it all for you, Lewlyn," another tear slides down his face, cooling his eyelashes when he blinks, a slight gasp emitting from his throat. "I love you, Lewlyn."
He takes a step back from the painting, turning when he notices someone heading his way, a faint blush settling on his cheeks. It may be alright for him to feel the way he does about his sister, despite what he's gone through with her in times past, but for someone else to hear declarations of romance to an inanimate object… Rennie tugs at his collar, smiling sheepishly at the servant who had been helping the Peacekeepers clear away some of the rubble. It is not quite noon when he checks one of the clocks on the side before climbing the stairs, about ten minutes till, so he knows he has some time to kill.
"You've never been up here before have you, Mr. Davis?" the woman asks him, she folding her hands over her skirt, a spotted little thing that barely seems to brush past her knees. He gives a silent nod, putting the remote in his pocket. He lost the tablet that Bonnie had given him up on the balcony when she pushes him during their confrontation, it shattering into several pieces that are probably still up there. He remembers digging his fingers into the concrete, bleeding out from the wound in his shoulder, unable to find the ability in vaulting himself over to join Bonnie in the afterlife. An afterlife that he sent her to, a person he used to believe he'd stay with forever and ever until the seas would run dry.
"No, I have not," he signs at her, hoping, praying that the woman would happen to know what he's saying, as to otherwise it means communicating with the patch on his neck, at which he does see the woman narrow her gaze on it before taking another step towards him.
"I am the one in charge of making sure all the paintings and pictures are taken care of," she extends his hand for her to shake, he doing so in earnest. "Luckily, this side of the building is alright after what has happened…" the woman drops her voice for a moment, taking a step around him to pat the wall, Rennie nodding his head in agreement. It is one way to address it, for certain, to encompass a rebellion and thousands of lives lost as simply just a 'what has happened.' "It is a history wing, built by President Emrick Israel in one of the last years of his reign before Cain Passionia took the presidency," the servant faces Lewlyn's picture head on. "Every time there is a new president or Head Gamemaker elected, selected, or what have you, there is a portrait made for them and hung on this wall." There is pride in her voice as she gestures up at the picture, Rennie taking another step back to bask in the glory of his sister's depiction, although he believes the nose is done incorrectly. "Head Gamemakers are done on four by five-foot frames, and presidents are six by six," the woman wrings her hands together, Rennie taking notice of how well manicured her nails are. "Any time there is a new portrait that needs to replace the previous one, in the designing of the initial a smaller size is also made alongside it to be hung up in lined succession when it is eventually taken down."
"Where do they go?" Rennie asks the woman, frowning. There may never be another Head Gamemaker in Panem's history, but he does not like the concept of his sister's picture just getting taken off the wall and thrown away. Besides his memory of her, since the statue in Gamemakers Square of Constantine having been desecrated, this painting may be all there is of Lewlyn in a positive light, for he'll never be able to look at her gravestone and hold the tears back.
"There's a basement of the larger pictures, but eventually the materials might need to be recycled for new use," the woman shrugs. "It all depends on the president in charge, truthfully," she looks up at Lewlyn's painting, but Rennie is unable to tell if there are tears in the woman's eyes or just sunlight falling on her powdered face, for she is done up in all sorts of makeup, but he does not have the heart to press his remote and tell her it looks awful; he's done enough breaking of hearts lately. "Your sister's picture will need to be taken down eventually, Mr. Davis, as sad as it is to say. There was work being made on Ms. Fallorne's," Rennie growls lowly in his throat at the woman's name. She is someone he is glad to say is dead. Her husband, while not the most perfect man, did not deserve the ending that she locks him into, the stories saying his throat dissolves in on itself like crumbling up a napkin. "But who knows, maybe it gets to stay up here forever," she turns around to face the other wall, dread sinking into Rennie's ankles. "Madam Rodney's painting was finished two days before the reapings for the 101st Games, so she's had hers replace Calhoun's."
Rennie swallows his fear, turning around to see Bonnie's portrait. It is larger, the frame, as the woman had said it would be, the six by six design, and it is in a golden one rather than a silver one. A plaque sits beneath the name, Rennie taking a step forward to read it. Bonnie Elizabeth Rodney, President of Panem, term of one month, two weeks, six days. Rennie takes a step back, the water in his mouth drying up. This would've just been updated, as… he looks up at the painting, slowly, his body tensing up like a spring waiting to release. Her stare seems to look down at him, although the picture has Bonnie keeping her stare straight ahead, blonde hair slung over one shoulder, she dressed in the same blue pinstripe suit she had been wearing when she makes her announcement for the members of the Phoenix to come to the mansion initially.
He takes a step back, pressing his hands up against the sides of his throat, trying to keep his breakfast from reappearing onto the tile. She looks ethereal in the photo, the beauty he used to respect in her, her diamond stare solid like she is crucifying the person who is painting her picture in the background where no one is able to what it looked like from her end. This is the woman he has killed, the woman he has overthrown, the system that had pushed him down into the dirt and wondered why he had been crying out against injustices in the world. The little girl, the daughter – "Your daughter now, Rennie," a voice that is not the one he hears in his head normally spits at him, causing Rennie to shiver despite the sunlight streaming through the window – looks just like her, even if she is only a few months old at this point, but is in the curve of the nose, the angling of the forehead, and even the way the little girl smiles, from the few times Bonnie has ever grinned.
Sitting in a smaller frame, a three by three he judges by looking at it, next to it, is a president that Rennie does not recognize, he turning to face the servant who simply lifts her head up.
"From records that have been scoured over and over again, that is said to be the first person who led Panem as we know it is today. Many presidents before Mr. Emrick Israel and Mr. Cain Passionia, who are more down in the middle of the row," the woman points. "I don't recall the man's name though, and his plaque has been taken," she says as she leans in to get a better look.
Rennie matches her level for level, looking at the wall, and then turning back around to see the line of Head Gamemakers, mentally adding Constantine's picture to it. The Head Gamemaker before Lewlyn, who would've been Plutarch Heavensbee if he does the math in his head correctly, is the last picture in that line, but he is unable to see clearly where Calhoun's picture has gone. "There are a lot more Head Gamemakers than Presidents," he takes note, raising an eyebrow.
"Terrible Gamemakers and very trigger-happy presidents," the woman supposes, though her tone remains neutral.
That causes him to frown. Did his sister have the longest time being a Head Gamemaker? Some of the plaques only say a few weeks, the longest as he looks down the collection being no more than five or six years if that… what did his sister have, if she had been such a devil, that the others did not to keep her alive? It is a question he figures would be too disrespectful to ask the woman, who has joined him again as he goes back to Bonnie's picture.
She's gone, and he's still here, something that radiates through him like a bullet to the spine.
"You know, Mr. Davis, now that you've seen all of this, do you think you'll ever see your face up there?" she asks with a smile, the servant looking at him while Rennie's eyes appraise over the way the painter had done Bonnie's eyes. "I mean, I imagine you and your sister didn't expect to become prized members of a Panemian president's administration at one point, but here we are twenty years later and-"
"No," Rennie signs, though he debates for a moment on using the remote, which he can feel in his pocket, his hand ghosting over it slightly, plastic colliding with the point of his thumb. "Not really. Maybe, once upon a time, but now?" He frowns, shaking his head. Power drives his sister to the brink of insanity, to the point where she's paranoid and cuts his tongue out over something he's never said or done. Power destroys the Rodney family from the inside out… the sample of power he's had in leading a rebellion has been enough, he supposes.
The way the woman stares at him will never leave him, as if she knows something he doesn't before nodding her head, turning back, and heading towards the Peacekeepers working on moving the rubble. Rennie looks at the clock on the wall, it being just a minute or so till noon.
He sighs to himself, straightening out the edges of his shirt, palming the remote in his hand, before turning his back to Bonnie's picture, giving one last look at his sister's. There is a new future, potentially, through those double doors, the cane in his grip, but he considers leaving it outside the room as he makes his way to the double doors.
Rennie can pick up slight chatter on the other side of the door, fingers eclipsing the knob, before he twists it and pushes in on the door.
Nine other people are in the room before him, Rennie jumping with a slight start as he enters the room, the conference room that Calhoun would've held plenty of talks about the Games if they were not in his office or on the balcony. The door shuts behind Rennie with a groan, trapping him here and the free world left outside there, his eyes searching over. Pollux is in the corner speaking with Valencia, both of them turning towards the entrance as the door closes. Criston is next to Ciphra, already sitting down, pairs of dark hair matching their outfits, but Ciphra scoots her chair back as Rennie enters, her hands resting on the table.
It is a circular table, dark brown in color, that takes up most of the allocated space in the room, Rennie inching towards it and towards the open chair in front of him, these black spokes with a flattened spot to sit on. Ponty and Amaris are both standing as far away from one another as they can, Amaris next to Lance, who is next to the empty chair, Hale on Rennie's left with Vivian, who has her red bow back in her hair next to her, it looking like Pollux would be taking the head of the table, a bit of pride surging into Rennie's veins. He had always wanted to see what Pollux would do in charge of something other than just speaking to people on stage with a microphone in his hand. Lewlyn could've done that, any of the tributes with a personality would have been able to do that.
The room is carpeted as Rennie takes another step towards it, leaning forward to place his cane on the side of the table. Whatever remnants of conversation that had taken place are silenced immediately when Rennie rights himself, simply looking at everyone. Weathered lines are sunken into most of their faces, Hale, Pollux, Valencia, and Amaris looking the most tired out of all of them, the Interviewer making his way to the front of the table, pulling back on the chair, which scoots on the floor. Opposite him, pressed against the wall, is a cart with a decanter of water and several glasses sitting on it, but no one seems to have gotten a glass.
He can feel the power in the room, but as he looks around it, he sees that Kevia Janelle and Hector Merviere are not among them, sadness flooding into his stomach. Criston hadn't mentioned that to him in their conversation, that they were gone… he can only imagine that if they were alive they'd be in the room, since it seems to him- he bites down on his tongue. It is the past, currently, and all that matters is being in this room with these people who have been waiting for him, though on what he is not certain about.
"What is all of this for?" he signs, raising an eyebrow.
"It's what briefly discussed before Interview Night," Pollux smiles wryly, dressed in a simple chromatic white and black ensemble, Valencia's eyes flashing at the statement. Secrets, secrets, secrets… the entire rebellion is built on secrets, it infused into Rennie's DNA, something he is unable to help or stop no matter how hard he tries.
"And we're all that's left?"
"All that I can trust, at least," Pollux runs one hand alongside the top of the chair while those who had been standing, which is Valencia and Ponty, take their seats, Ciphra sitting back down as Rennie takes his. "When Constantine destroyed the Tribute Center, many escorts and mentors died in the destruction. Some mentors are stuck in the districts cleaning up whatever messes we've made, and everyone else is-"
"Bonnie's suckers," Valencia fills in for him, her voice as cold as ice, strong as steel.
Rennie winces at the tone, but he remembers that Criston said whatever Valencia went through for her encounter with the devil – he means Constantine, but the devil is apt – has her dancing on the edge of precarious and bitter. "Just waiting for me?"
"Just waiting for you," Pollux smiles, with a nod.
The Avox's gaze passes over the table, it starting with him, Hale, Vivian, Pollux, Valencia, Ponty, Criston, Ciphra, Amaris, Lance, and back to him, he wiping his palms on his pants. Ponty furrows his brow together, scoffing at Pollux's words, getting everyone's attention to him. "If you said it is people you can trust, Mr. Aetos, then why the fuck is she here?" he questions aloud, venom in his tone as he points over at Amaris, a barbed finger twisted and curled up into a spike to dive into her chest.
Amaris sighs, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, rubbing her forehead with a hand. Rennie imagines that the last two days have been like this if this is exactly what has been transpiring without him in the first place. "Ponty, not now-" she starts, but her district partner doesn't let her get the chance.
"You do one good thing and now I'm supposed to kiss your ass?"
"Ponty, no one is saying that-" Ciphra starts, rather tiredly, she not even concentrating, her gaze more sporadic and onto the table, fingernails scratching away at something.
Pollux clears his throat, though Rennie can see by the way his fingers curl that he'd rather be holding onto an object where he could smash it into the table, like a gavel. Maybe it is a miracle that Rennie has gotten all of these personalities to work together for a common good. "Mr. Carr, right now Amaris is under Rennie and the rebellion's protection, for without her, we might not even be sitting here having this conversation," Rennie has heard Pollux get serious before, even to the point of shouting or screaming, but there is something different from the way the interviewer looks at the tribute, gaze frigid, Ponty locking his jaw.
"But-"
"Ponty, just drop it," Vivian mutters from her seat, she sinking a bit down into it, just to the point where her head peeks over the top of it, but she does not make an effort to sit any higher in the chair. "We've got more important things to discuss, and-"
They are not even babbling with one another, but in Rennie's head it is like listening to a squabble of chickens clucking and pecking at one another, he taking a deep breath like Amaris, who has recovered and set her arms to the sides of the chair, gripping, and hugging the arm rests. He had been eavesdropping on one of Bonnie and Lewlyn's arguments about the arena for the 101st Games shortly after Valencia's victory tour begins with her stopping in District 4 for her speech, and while Rennie knows now that all along the woman had been planning on killing her sister, perhaps even from day or week one when the two first met all those years ago in a ballroom while he is playing the violin in the corner, the amount of bickering the two grown women would do over something as seemingly inconsequential as the design of light fixtures so the tributes could see would be enough to make him massage his temples.
If he is incapable of taking it from two grown women who would've known better had they been raised by better mothers, he'll never last through an hour of two teenagers going to town at one another like two vultures fighting over a corpse.
Hale pinches the bridge of her nose, slamming her palm on the table, which brings the room to a silent standstill, Amaris about to hotly object to some insult about her ass that comes from Ponty's accusation that he makes on the joke Pollux makes during his interview on blowing – Rennie has to suppress the slight giggle in his throat – all sound stopping when everyone looks at the victoress from District 2. "You are not tributes right now in this room, but people actively helping for Panem's survival and your own survival, regardless of what you two have done," she takes a look around the room, surveying a sweep with her arm. "We have all been through hell, and right now we could all do without another dosage of bickering. If you want to act like children instead of young adults, you're more than welcome to tour the mansion or go help some Peacekeepers with their cleanup projects."
That seems to do the trick, Rennie smiling slightly and squeezing the woman's hand with an appreciative amount of pressure. Pollux purses his lips, looking over at Ponty who seems to fall back into his chair, almost in a sulking manner, but thankfully he does not cross his arms over his chest. Amaris does the opposite, sitting up even straighter with her back pressed firmly into the chair. Rennie scoots his chair back to go over to the decanter, going to fill up a glass of water, though no one else asks for him to make them one, so he does not.
On his way back to his seat, Pollux fills the space left vacant by Hale's words. "The victors, Rennie, and I have decided that the situations dealing with Amaris will be dealt with after the rest of the nation's troubles are dealt with first, so for now, put away the fight or leave like Hale instructed."
"Nation's troubles?" Ciphra furrows her brow together, Rennie's heartbeat beginning to pick up in his chest. He knows what is about to happen, even if he still doesn't want it to happen.
Pollux scoots his chair in even further to be closer to the table. Although it is something he and the other victors have been up for hours in the morning talking about, it is only briefly entertained and hinted at, but in Rennie's now realized naivete, the amount of destruction they've brought to the city and to the districts and to Panem as a whole in just four days is staggering, complete turmoil when someone rips the lawn out from under their feet, causing them to fall flat on their face. He doesn't have an answer, but the Panemian Council might be able to, a title he dubs before he detonates the bombs in Bonnie's living room… what Panem's future will look like when the Phoenix has melted away into ash.
The interviewer laces his fingers together, much very like the portrait of Lewlyn out in the hallway, Rennie's scalp starting to itch, he focusing on one water droplet slide down his glass of water. "As easy as it is so say, the rebellion and what we wanted to do has been accomplished. We overthrew Bonnie," there's a general rise of congratulations and cheer added to the mix, Rennie trying to keep his grin down. "However, that does not mean our job is far from over, since as Criston poetically put it, there needs to be an 'after' for this nation, for us," he looks directly at Rennie, a pang of emotion running through him. "Bonnie Rodney is dead. Lazarus Pietro is dead. Constantine Fallorne is dead. The president, Head Peacekeeper, and the Head Gamemaker, among others, make up the Panemian Council, or otherwise known as to the public, the Administration, and with Bonnie in power, they'd be the Rodney Administration…" he clears his throat, that causing Rennie to go for a sip of his water glass. "Rennie never knew what to do in case this didn't end up with all of us dying. How do we go from shattering a mirror to piecing it back together again?" Pollux asks, and although the question is rhetorical, Rennie can see the way Valencia and Hale furrow their brows together at it, trying to find the answer. "That is going to be up to us, today, in this room, for however long it takes. We need to decide on what must be done, and we need to have an answer eventually, or otherwise all we've done for has fallen apart."
"The Hunger Games must end," is the first thing that comes out Vivian Whiplash's mouth, the girl from District 10 sitting straight up in her chair at that. "I didn't get reaped for the Games, survive a war, and decide on this nation's future for the Games to continue," she tugs at the ribbon in her hair. "I'd kill whoever decides to keep them, no matter who," and, even if she doesn't realize she does it, her gaze falls on the Avox, Rennie's skin bristling with electricity at her look.
"How do we even have the power to make a decision such as this?" Ciphra asks, as a follow-up, her eyes bright with curiosity, brow furrowed like a few of the victors sitting at the table. Rennie often asks him that question as well, when he had been lying down in the Underground Defense while all of his other compatriots were enjoying their 'freedom' around the Capitol, going out to frolic in the sun, to eat things that didn't come out of a can, where they can keep their hair color the same…
He asks himself all the time, and finds himself asking it right now even in the midst of all he's done, what power does he somehow have now to be able to do what he's done? Who gave him the right to play Creator in people's lives? To kill those he has killed, to pave the streets in front of him with blood… a pressure on his shoulders he is sure he is not recovering from anymore.
"Enough power in us to think we could've started a rebellion and won," Ponty snorts in his seat, and although it is not disrespectful, Valencia elbows him in the side with a glare.
Pollux swishes his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other, blinking hard several times. "The others who I'd have considered in helping make these decisions are people I am fairly certain are Bonnie's diehard helpers who'd rather this nation burn to the ground before Rennie or I or Valencia live and breathe another day. Thanks to her help, mine, plus Vivian and Amaris's, they're all prisoners in the cells below and it'll be up to the people should it ever become a burden they can handle, on what to happen to them," he says, Rennie raising an eyebrow. What exactly happened while he had been knocked out?
His dreams were not dreams or nightmares, Rennie's, while in that unconscious state, but a shapeless blob of nothing keeping him afloat, like he's swimming in gelatin, an insect trapped in amber as he drowns in a sea of nothingness, liquid lava filling his throat and chest, stopping him from rising to the surface to catch a breath, all the while Bonnie's body breaks open and cracks like an egg on the ground below him, sizzling in the heat, her scream trapped in his ear drums.
"You all saw firsthand how hard it was trying to get the Peacekeepers in the districts to stand down and let the good fight be lost after we won here," Pollux motions for a glass of water, Criston getting up and making it for him, he taking a long swig after receiving it, Rennie's eyes focusing on the man's Adam's apple as he takes several swallows… his throat power had been quite the instrument, in more ways than one. A faint blush rises to his cheeks, but he suffocates the thought; it is something he'll pursue later if it comes down to it. "They still need to heal, even if the damage done there is not nearly as bad as all of this here has become in such a short period of time…" he thumps his fingers against the desk. "We must decide what Panem's future will be. Who leads, how we lead it, and what we need to do going forward from here."
Rennie is not quite sure what he expects to have happen after Pollux finishes his miniature speech, taking another sip of water for emphasis. Perhaps there could've been one of them to stand up on the table and declare their brilliant idea like a direct lightning bolt to the forehead, with thundering applause to accompany their return back to the mortal land of these black wicker chairs, but instead, they are all met with, once again, silence.
He almost laughs.
Lance scoffs at first, leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table. "Pollux, I don't think it is supposed to be that easy-"
The interviewer bristles some in his chair at the statement. "I never said it was going to be easy, but-"
"Well, if we are to think about governances and how the nation should be run, is it too outlandish to suggest that the districts all rule themselves?" Ciphra raises an eyebrow, after having whispered something in Criston's ear. Rennie wants to sit up and speak, but he doesn't know if his voice is instrumental enough in a conversation like this… he led everyone to watering hole to take a drink, but he is not the Alpha Male horse who'll lean down first and sip from the pool with the crocodile eying him all the while.
"That wouldn't work," Hale disagrees, with a frown, a perceptible shake of her head. "The Treaties of Treason declared that the districts would never be self-governing. It is always the mayor and the Head Peacekeeper doing all that work, and if we were to start now…" the victor from District 2 takes a deep breath, "We may never even get to finish, getting however many people to start their own governments…" Ciphra frowns likewise with the shooting down of her idea, but Rennie knows it.
Valencia pinches her brow, Rennie noticing that her dark hair nearly disappears into the chair. "Forgive me for saying her name, but from the little of what Bonnie had told me about governing is that the way Panem has been designed, you have to think about it as a beating heart," the stand-offish presence that had seemed to emanate from the victor from when Rennie enters the room disappears as she speaks, the power and attention of the room flocking to her as Ciphra stops her rebuttal. "The districts are specialized in a trade or a focus, and the Capitol provides the 'entertainment,'" Valencia makes air quotes around the word, she, and the other victors as well as the tributes squirming their noses in disgust at the idea. The Hunger Games as entertainment must be the largest slap in the face that Rennie can think of. "You cut off one valve of the beating heart, then the entire system experiences organ failure."
"Who'd she get that notion from?" Amaris asks.
Without missing a beat, Valencia looks at the Peacekeeper straight in the eyes, but Amaris, to her credit doesn't flinch. "Apparently that is what President Coriolanus Snow told Katniss Everdeen once," the victor shrugs at the statement, though Rennie's stomach acid churns like a stormy sea. "I understood it though. The districts can't survive autonomously, and neither can the Capitol. The two either coexist together, or Panem doesn't exist, period."
Back to square one, then, Rennie resigns to himself with a sigh, trying to not groan.
"Separate district governments is not a possibility, then," Pollux brushes some hair out of his brow. "Which means that we need a ruler then, correct? Someone to rule the country from the Capitol, as president of Panem."
"How do we have the power to decide that?" Criston sits up in his seat, voice incredulous. He leans forward onto the desk, rubbing his forehead.
Lance shrugs his shoulders. "How does anyone get anything done if all they do is question themselves?"
Amaris cuts over whoever is going to speak next. "If what Mr. Aetos says is true, then that means we need to select someone to rule, and there's only one person in here that isn't a lackey of Ms. Rodney to do it," Rennie, for a moment, believes she's speaking about him, as he lifts his head, but she's staring ahead directly at Valencia. "Valencia," the victor in question jumps in place at her name, as if someone had electrocuted her sitting right there, her body straightening up instantly, eyes widening, fingers clenching around the armrests. "Ms. Rodney said your name every five minutes it felt like. You were staying in the Capitol did learn about how to rule, didn't you?"
Valencia shakes her head back and forth in a rapid-fire movement, to the point where Rennie is afraid that she's going to somehow break her neck and send her own head flying into the decanter of water. "No," her voice is barely that of a whisper, but Rennie hears it, the crippling fear in it.
He's heard that fear before, fear that rises from his own throat as Lewlyn bursts into his room in the middle of the night with Lazarus Pietro – he should've known from the first, the fucker – and an accompanying squadron of Peacekeepers that drag him out of his bed in a night terror, ripping his violin from his hands before removing his tongue from his mouth in a splash of scarlet… that is the fear he hears in Valencia's voice, her gaze that of a thousand lives gone by, a song sung by ghosts.
"Valencia-" Hale starts, a motherly tone hidden in her tone, perhaps trying to push pathos onto her fellow victor's shoulders.
"NO!" Valencia shouts, but for all her credit, she simply leans forward out of her chair some instead of getting to her feet like Rennie expects. "No, I won't do it," her entire body is trembling like a leaf, Ponty reaching over and touching her wrist with his hand, a gentle amount of pressure applied that has her falling back into her sea a bit more lax than before they all began speaking. "Bonnie and I had a couple lessons, yes," she continues, after her initial outburst wears off, "But nothing to the point of ruling a nation. She never even told me why she selected me…" the victor looks down into her lap. "I think she just wanted to keep me around cause she liked me, in all honesty."
Rennie cannot reach across the table to touch her hand, and he doesn't, but he knows he can do something else instead that'd bring the house down around him, no need for one of Criston's explosive devices to do the trick this time.
He presses his thumb against the remote in his left pocket, thoughts running rampant in his head.
"I understand, Valencia," a voice that is not his own, but Rennie is starting to believe it is his own at this point, comes out of the patch, the speaker, on his throat. For a moment, there is a heavy pause on the air, a lamenting pause on the air, but then the sound of nine bodies all turning to face him in unison – eight, truthfully, by the way Criston is smirking to himself in his seat, completely beside himself – some with shocked facial expressions, open mouths and dropped jaws, but most of all, the brightness in their eyes.
"Did- did you just speak?" Vivian is the first, as per usual, to bridge into unknown territory.
"I know what he used to sound like," Pollux frowns, his voice heavy and sad as he speaks from his corner of the table. "That isn't Rennie's voice, but someone else's coming from Rennie," he turns to face the victor from District 6, the only one not moving. "You did that, didn't you? That's the surgery you wanted to have Rennie go under so you could get that device onto him, isn't it?"
Criston shrugs, smiling. "Lewlyn's last gift to him, but I am working out most of its kinks," his eyes sparkle like freshly washed spinach, glistening in green. Rennie's skin begins to itch with this many eyes on him, a look of amazement dancing on all of their eyes. "I was wondering when you were going to use it."
"You have a voice…" Hale whispers, she pressing a hand to the Avox's face. "I mean, not your voice, but one and-"
"It's mine, Hale," Rennie continues, he wanting to cheer, but the look on everyone else's faces is enough in terms of the amount of joy he could have in his life, the amount that'd forever fill him full with happiness.
A pause settles over the group, Ponty and Ciphra congratulating Criston with pats on the back, before Valencia and Pollux look at one another, a conversation passing silently between them by just their eyes. Rennie pulls the remote out of his pocket, setting it on the table as he takes a sip of water just in case he does push the button again that he doesn't startle someone when words start flowing out of a mouth with lips that do not move. He wonders how disconcerting it must look like to Lance and Hale when it happens, for there to be no movement.
The glass is cool in his hands as he lifts it to his lips, Pollux and Valencia returning to their normally seated positions.
"I don't think I'd be able to do it, but I think Rennie could," the victor says, with a smile, nodding her head in his direction. His hand pauses halfway to his mouth, the rim of the glass just barely touching his lip as he freezes in place.
His free hand does have room to move about, so he signs it instead. "What?" Why is everyone all of a sudden looking at him in the first place? He's made his moment of dropping the microphone on the table by revealing Criston's device, where he needs to give the victor another hug for his accomplishment, and a visit to Lewlyn's grave to thank her, but he's done… just observing and-
Pollux cannot hide his grin even if he tried; Rennie picks the worst person in the entire Rodney administration to help do his dirty work if he cannot even suppress moments of doubt and secrecy. "You, Rennie, as president."
Rennie drops his water glass, but luckily Lance is there to catch it before it shatters onto the table and floods all over his pants. "Wh- what?" His entire system is too shocked to even reach for the remote to press the button, eyes widening in disbelief.
"Seriously, Rennie," Pollux nods his head. "We all trusted you to lead us in a rebellion against her, and although you didn't know what you were doing the entire time, you knew Bonnie needed to be stopped, and you knew that the Games to needed to be eradicated from Panem…" he gestures around the table, Rennie following the movement to see that everyone's faces were changing to that of appeasement and general agreement, a seed of panic flaring up in the pit of Rennie's stomach. "Everyone in the nation saw your video that you filmed, and you were the one who came up with the idea of having me broadcast it and interrupt the normal filming of the reaping propaganda so everyone would see it…" the interviewer shakes his head back and forth, a lump filling in his throat. "You did it because you cared, and because you knew you'd be the only one who could do it. The one we chose."
Rennie doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know what to say, or think, or feel, or any of it. All he can remember after hearing the news that his sister and Calhoun were killed, and that Hale and Arizona were indicted for their murders all the while Bonnie ascends to a throne that isn't hers… he can only remember the rage in him, the way he wants to smash the violin his sister gifts him into the floor, or to scream into the blankets that surround his apartment… but instead he doesn't do that.
He opens the virtual chessboard, the game of chess where every single pawn has turned into a queen, Bonnie working with a set of kings, and it is no surprise that he ends up beating her with his head in the game, his eye on the prize. Simply put her in checkmate, checkmate until she suffocates under the pressure.
Lance is the first person to agree to the Phoenix Rebellion, a simple note that comes across his mailbox the moment he goes into hiding after sending the video around the Capitol of Bonnie's illegal dealings. From that point forward, it is a rolling snowball, some things in effect from time's past with Calhoun and Lewlyn's movements in the dark… he can only see knocking over the king and putting her in checkmate, not what lies beyond that on the horizon, hidden in murky depths of fog and mist and rain and blood and tears and-
His head is spinning, Rennie placing a hand on the table, the other going to rub the center of his forehead.
"You guys, I can't-"
"You wouldn't be doing it alone," Pollux interrupts him, lifting his head in the air. "You'd have me, and Valencia, and Criston, and every district and every district citizen behind you as the person who wanted to do things right," the Master of Ceremonies' chair scoots forward as Pollux shifts his body weight into the table. "I believed in you to take us this far, even when you kept us in the dark, because only you had a plan and if we deterred from it, we all could've died. We all believe in you to have you lead us further on than this."
"I can't-"
"I thought I couldn't win the Games after one point," Valencia cuts him off, her voice strong, reverb full of life, eyes bright with tears, Rennie locking his gaze with hers. "After Marcus shot Maisey and cut Hero's throat open, and when I saw Persephone get burnt alive, I thought I'd die in that arena, until I didn't, and I wasn't going to let a hateful woman take my life away either," she set her arms on the table, palms flat, top of her hands facing the ceiling. "I joined your rebellion because I believed in you. We all joined because we believed in you."
He has no idea what to think. His entire body is buzzing once more, but he no longer hears Bonnie's dying scream in his head, but the sound of her baby laughing, or Bonnie's laughter when she is told a joke by Lazarus on one of his off days. Rennie hears his sister singing in the shower, or her humming one of violin melodies years ago before the corrupt power reaches her head. He hears the sound of waves slamming onto a stony shore, or cheers when a victor returns home to their district and a bouquet of flowers rests in their hands.
Rennie can hear his own name being shouted by the soldiers who followed him into battle just a few days ago against the Peacekeepers. The way Pollux shouts the Avox's name as he lunges forward to vault the ticking time bomb onto the far wall of the mansion… his sister saying his name as he kisses her and rests their backs up against a wall, kicking over a plant onto the floor.
He can hear himself saying his own name in his head, so he doesn't forget it one day, so when he's old and gray it'll never leave him, for if it is to leave him, then he is lost.
"Rennie?" Hale asks gently, placing a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. He doesn't realize it, but he's pressed his head into his arms, resting them on the table. Is- is he crying? Rennie feels a dampness where his face had rested, and sure enough, there are a few tears sliding down his face. What did that woman outside tell him, when looking at all of the pictures of the presidents and Head Gamemakers?
"Rennie?" Pollux prods lightly, light enough where he'd feel it with the urgency of his voice. "Rennie, we do need an answer."
The avox lifts his head, swallowing down his fear. He swallows his fear when he's an avox in his sister's service. He swallows his fear performing in front of packed crowds with his violin nestled underneath his jaw, bow string in his hands. He swallows his fear typing away on the tablet Bonnie gives him to be the downfall of her own making as he presses record on the camera in front of him. He swallows his fear charging into battle.
He no longer needs to bury his fears or hope they wither away like a decaying winter into the onslaught of a ferocious spring.
If he one day finds a way to up the volume on the speech that'll come from the speaker attached to his throat via the remote, he'll use it all the time, as Rennie lifts his head up, smiling.
"I will," he says, decisively, taking a look at the gathered council in the room. They are the Panemian Council, whether they know it or not. And now, they're his. "I'll take up the presidency for Panem."
Valencia's smile almost makes him cry even harder, drowned out in Lance's cheering, or Ponty's clapping, while Pollux simply leans back, preened as a peacock by how he then puts his feet up on the table.
Rennie smiles to himself, jostled by everyone's movements towards him, but he can only picture Lewlyn, from wherever she is, looking at him. "Look where we started," he thinks to himself, sweetly. "And look where we are now…" a bit of nostalgia brings a tear down his cheek, but he smiles larger at the rest of his thought. "And look at where we still have to go."
So everyone, that was Chapter #36: The Panemian Council, of Bombs and Bullets, the first of three epilogue chapters given the crazy, absolutely wild ride we've been on. So, from a violinist performing for sold out crowds, to his sister's personal avox and essentially a sex slave, to a freed man with some political power, to a traitor on the run, to the leader of a rebellion, to the leader of a successful rebellion, to the President of Panem... ladies and gentlemen, if that is not a character arc for Rennie Davis, then I do not know what one is anymore. This has actually always been my end goal, when I introduced Rennie and Lewlyn together back in Chapter 2 of Sheep Led to Slaughter's prologues, I wondered where Lewlyn in her all of insanity would go, and where Rennie, with his moments in the background would fall to... and he's risen instead of fallen.
For the bit about him being able to use the device Criston creates, I understand it might be a bit farfetched, but in the world where we have authors reviving tributes for resurrection games and whatnot, honestly down to Criston's genius and Capitol science/medicine I could have Rennie be given the ability to speak, which he'll need as Panem's new president. I am positively exhausted, as 12k of this was written in one sitting today that I am posting, but I wanted to get this chapter out and reach the other two epilogues, which will positively be pulling at my heartstrings. There will be four POVs each for these two chapters, two tributes and two Capitol characters between each chapter for eight remaining... what do you think will be the fate of the eight characters we'll hear from... and who do you think gets the last pov of Slaughterverse? 1/8 chance!
Thank you all so much for reading; reviews would be greatly appreciated now that we are here in the final frontier. I shall see you all soon sometime, hopefully on July 8th, which is Wednesday, for the second of the three epilogues, Chapter #37: A Nation on Trial, which I am very excited about, as we'll be seeing how this Panemian council and their decisions are settling in. I hope you all have an amazing day, and thank you again for your support. I love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm
