You are the Problem Here [Olivia/Kass]

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

For the better part of the eighty-second I’d stayed away from watching the games. I hadn’t really partaken in much of the pomp and ceremony since the sixties, anyway. It was always all the same sycophantic people hanging over one another placing bets and contributing to the decline of things. Snow had enabled them to keep power. Weak and feeble opposition in the capitol through entertainment and riches had meant no one was left to look at the status of things, save for those of us who truly made the trains run on time.

I like to believe the only reason I hadn’t been removed from my post was because he knew the utter calamity it would’ve been to have someone else try to do my job. No one wanted to be the Secretary of Commerce when that meant getting food, clothes, all manner of things between the districts and the capitol and safely. To measure that the fisheries were working or that the price of grain didn’t interfere with the poorest lot in eleven.

But I’d watched her win after the riots in eleven.

It was perhaps the biggest signal that something was terribly wrong. One that Snow had been avoiding for years. Now he was dead and had been replaced with a useless set of individuals who could not govern.

“Right to the point. That’s what I admire about you, Kassandra. You say exactly what you feel, don’t you?” I put my hands in front of my jacket and give another grin. “To start, why don't you tell me just how you feel about how the capitol is doing things now, without Snow? Don’t afraid to be honest. I’m trying to get a better understanding from our younger victors.”

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

I have never been particularly fond of children, though at the least Kassandra could be useful. The fire that she had could be stoked into something else with enough schooling. After all, she’d folded so easily to Katelyn to release a part of her anger, how hard could it have been to mold her into something else?

And she provides a welcome game of agreeing with me, where any fool can see she can’t even bother to hide her contempt. The snap of her gum has me adjusting my sunglasses as I stare on the miscreant from eleven. No matter. She would learn what it meant when one of us finally put her in her place.

“Do you care to explain your acts of sedition, then?” I ask quietly, unmoving. I had seen the tapes of the training center. I had heard the conversation between her and Delroy. They really had all become so bold in Snow’s death to think we couldn’t see every waking moment when they were inside the capitol. “Talking with a traitor that then died a pathetic death in the games."

Had he gotten an inch closer, I would've been banging on the door of the control room myself to remind the idiots running the games just what it would have meant for Delroy to have made the finale.

"You may be a victor but you are not entitled to an opinion on government. Unless you’re thinking of criticizing the idiot who represents your district.”

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

Of course, she didn’t have a word to say about the treason that’d slipped out of her mouth. They all thought they could just say whatever they wished because they’d managed to survive. That sense of entitlement had not yet been beaten out of this one, and there were too many that had forgotten the debt they owed to the capitol. All it took was calling them on their bad behavior for them to realize how sorely they’d been mistaken.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear any apology for what was it you said – tearing down society, was it? Encouraging treason on the most watched event across the nation.” I pursed my lips and stared back at her. “In the interest of time, I shall tell you that the Wickershams have been more or less eliminated from causing any future trouble.”

The peacekeepers had already removed his next of kin, save for his mother. Someone had to stand at the podium when the body came home as a reminder for what Delroy had done to the capitol. A silent reminder of how it could all change in an instant if we gave the word.

“Vasco Izar may be well liked by the knuckle dragging mouth breathers of eleven, but his desire to cause unrest will be investigated and punished to the full extent of the law. All who have decided that laws are merely suggestions will soon find out that while Snow may have been in twilight his last few years, I can assure them, I am not.”

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

I had spent much of my life being spoken down to by incompetent men who questioned my ability and status. And, as much as I could disparage Snow, he had kept me within his cabinet for much of his tenure. He knew well enough that I did not suffer foolishness, much less was I ever going to give an uncertain answer if I had none. I had learned early on that the real work went on behind the scenes to build power and to cut people off at their knees. Much of which an ignorant little troll like Kassandra Nerys would never understand.

However.

“You are correct. I am not the President. But I should remind you that at this moment, no one is.” To start, they had arranged a council that I had refused to participate in. Any fool could see that it was a waste of time, the way they would argue with one another to come up with half-baked solutions. I still had my office, and would continue to have all I needed at my disposal, and more, soon.

“Let me ask – who do you think it was that gave the order to peacekeepers to have the Wickershams executed? Or had Opal cut off her finger, yet another piece of her body? Or perhaps has your own “friend” Katelyn investigating you and your fellow victors already?” I did not need to raise my voice nor waste energy in anger at a pathetic mouse.

“There’s plenty of us that can do what we want, and few of us who know how.” I say as I turned back to look at the bust of Snow in his youth. “I expect you’re ready to settle down and be a good little girl and listen?”

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

The gears had to be turning in her head then. All of them acted so shocked when they discovered their so-called friends and allies would turn on them if meant offering some sort of protection to the ones they actually cared about. You’d think that if they had survived the games, they would understand that they could not place their trust in other people. That was a road traveled destined to end in heartache for them.

“You don’t have faith in your government and for good reason. You’ve been living in a district that nurtures the idea that you don’t need us to survive. That you only need one another to stay strong.” It hadn’t always been that way. Before the 70s, they had been forgettable, with few willing to raise their voices against the capitol.

But now, they had too many victors, and a man in the seat of government that thought he could inspire. And we all knew what happened when a popular, charismatic leader started agitating the populace for change.

“You’re going to work with Lt. Harlow, the peacekeeper assigned to this inquiry, and will spend your time having Vasco Izar confess his treason and his plans for rebellion.” I couldn’t help but smile then. Think of the fool sitting in a dark room, tied to a chair, begging for death after all he’d done to stir up trouble.

“By any means necessary.”

O l i v i a

Standing eye to eye
Pretending we're alive
As we grow colder
And oh
The devil that I know
Is better than the devil that I don't

Wasn’t she brave, now that she thought that she had nothing to lose? Except few if any ever have nothing they wouldn’t mind sparing, much less a selfish child who thought she knew better than a hundred years of history. Kassandra Nerys thought herself dangerous where she was instead insolent.

I turned back to face her and removed my sunglasses for the first time. She needed to look me in the eyes when she pushed back against forces that were far greater than what she would ever wield.

“I’ll start with having your tongue taken out for being a traitor. You’ll find it works wonders to silence even the most vicious critics. And then, oh, I don’t know, have you disappeared to the detention center. It wouldn’t matter to me. Eventually my dear, you’ll be forgotten. Especially someone with no family. People move on, you see.” Even President Snow was fading into history. Still hated for the work that he had done on behalf of the nation, but nowhere near the man he’d been in life.

“The choice is yours. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. But you?” I put my sunglasses back on and shook back my hair, “I'd make the most of my time if I were to say no this.”