civil blood; civil hands | {saffron/mackenzie} blitz

I am a child of a
money hungry, prideful country
grass is green and
it's always sunny

Since he'd awoken, he'd been burning. Fire in his throat, an inferno in the pit of his very heart; everything he did seemed to be laced with anger.

It was the only thing he felt.

He stood in an empty training room, one that had once housed twenty four people, all soon to die. One that had once only inspired fear. He looked over at the camouflage station where he'd met Anduril, to the elevator that went all the way up to the roof where he met Belladonna, to the doorway where he'd eaten with his allies— there wasn't a single area in this god forsaken building that didn't haunt him.

The bow almost felt foreign to him now, after he'd survived so long without one. Heavier somehow. He aimed for a faceless dummy, imagined Ceasar Flickerman, and President Snow, and Hera Levelwright, and Hazel Dalgaard, his sorry excuse for a father, and everyone else who'd put him here was standing there.

Arrow after arrow, he fired, and he hit true. Heart, eye, throat, abdomen: he fired until his quiver had run dry and his fingertips ached.

He slumped onto the floor, heart beating against his chest to remind him that he was still alive; everyone who'd wronged him was, too.

Everyone else was dead.

A flash of red hair to his right, a preschooler's tiny little legs moving at a rapid pace to keep up. He smiled at the little one, trying his best to seem unapproachable as Saffron Lowe stopped in front of him. She'd lived so long since her games, almost seemed happy now. Either she'd gotten good at acting, or she'd found a way to cope, but the anger within him was still hungry and he didn't trust himself.

How do you do it, he started to ask, but after looking at the victor's daughter, and how innocent she was, he only extended his hand to her.

"Don't believe we've met."

hands so bloody, tastes like honey
I'm finding it hard to leave

song: the prologue