when the fire goes out; Katelyn 92nd

Morning found Katelyn in the usual place. Out of the public eye and happy for it. As far as anyone needed to be concerned, she was retired. Mentorship required focus, and her focus the past several years had been on her family.

Checking in on Ky. Taking care of Opal. Being taken care of in turn. Visiting the Izars, and attending to her bakery. She’d not been as useful a pawn as certain ancient dignitaries in the Capitol might have hoped; though that was more due to Vasco mellowing out.

She paused in rolling out the pie crust on her kitchen counter and dusted her hands with more flour.

Forty had had a way of sneaking up on her.  She was still healthy, hale; and according to Opal aging like a fine wine, but she still felt the weight of the years behind her. She was in the old age of youth, and in another decade she'd be in the youth of old age. 

Breaking news; the screen mounted on the corner of the wall blared at her, a solemn newscaster replacing the final tributes fleeing from the bloodbath. Katelyn arched an eyebrow; it’d have to be a hell of a story to interrupt the games. Her gut clenched for a moment as she wondered if they’d finally arrested Vasco for anti-capitol sentiment.

PATRICIA VALFIERNO DIES AGED 42

The air in the room felt colder than even a castle carved out of ice.

“It just feels like they won, y’know. They always win.”

Rooftop conversations with the flame-haired victor floated back to her, her mind immediately jumping to the worst thing. Had the Capitol finally decided to collect their dues for Patricia’s younger days of outspokenness? Hadn’t they taken enough?

That fiery girl had been beaten into a woman holding onto the memory of embers. The rational part of Katelyn’s brain told her it could have been any number of things, liver failure, a car accident, and each new theory felt just as wrong.

42 was still so young.

It didn’t seem right. Victors were supposed to grow old. That was the point. They’d won their lives, as broken as that prize always was.

Hadn’t they just been trading gardening tips? But no, that had to have been a year or two ago already.

Today, Panem mourns the loss of 68th hunger games victor – Patricia Valfierno.

“Katelyn? Is everything alright in there? It sounded like you dropped your rolling pin?”

Had she? She hadn’t noticed. She pursed her lips, not able to respond to her wife. The screen was blurry now, not because the picture was failing, but because her eyes were full of tears.

She didn’t know if Patricia would have ever considered her a dear friend, but  Katelyn had considered her to be one. A welcome presence at more than one dinner. An imposing figure in their misspent youth. Why she still remembered that party where Patricia had been walking around with a bottle and a look in her eye.

Patricia had seemed like a titan back then.

The image of Crusader being drowned had been etched into her memory going into her games, and she’d tried hard to learn from the vids of games past, especially Patricia’s. To think that she was...

"Opal, it's on the news." she managed. "Patricia. Opal, Oh my god, She's—she's gone."

Katelyn sat down heavily on a barstool and wiped her tears away with her apron, partly because she knew she should have checked in on her more. And partly to mourn a sad-eyed woman who had deserved so much better than what the world had given her.