The Capitol of Panem [Monday, Fandom time]
Katniss Everdeen
Katniss wasn't sure she had ever really been meant to be a leader. When she'd suggested taking to the sewers, it had mostly been to avoid being seen. She hadn't expected to be lost down there, watching her little transmitter for any sign that they might be getting closer.
She also hadn't expected to be found.
From down the tunnel, she heard their feet -- the distinctive clatter of Peacekeeper boots. On her yell to run, though, she heard something worse -- something she didn't recognize outside of the fact that it matched the growls of mutts in her nightmares.
They were white, four-limbed, about the size of a full-grown human, but that was where the comparisons stopped.
Naked, with long reptilian tails, arched backs, and heads that jutted forward. They swarmed over the Peacekeepers, clamping on to their necks with their mouths and ripping off the helmeted heads. Apparently, having a Capitol pedigree was as useless there as it was in Thirteen. It seemed to take only seconds before all the Peacekeepers were decapitated. The mutts fell to their bellies and skittered toward them on all fours.
Wesley
Wesley leapt back upon getting his first glimpse at the lizards, letting out a less-than-manly cry of surprise. Then he was all business, his hand going instinctively to his holster to tug out his gun.
He kept his distance from the lizards themselves, recognizing instantly that he could be of greater use shooting from a distance. Their skin was thick and hard, but he found if he aimed for a certain fleshy spot on the neck, he could weaken them slightly.
Luke
Luke had Backbiter out the second he saw what they were dealing with. These were the kind of enemies he was used to. He knew he had to keep moving, but he tried to keep towards the end of the pack in order to put himself between the lizards and people who didn't have much experience with this sort of thing.
He was able to hack through some of their limbs, but he quickly began to realize that fighting them off completely wasn't going to happen. They had to get out of there.
Anakin
"Aim for the eyes!" Anakin called out as he ignited his lightsaber. "Katniss, we need a way out of here. Now."
Katniss
"The ladder!" Katniss said, on the verge of hysterics as a lizard ripped apart one of her cameramen. She bolted down the tunnel towards the ladder, shimmying up it to shove the cover off. From her vantage point she could shoot a bit more, sending an arrow through one of the lizard's eyes.
Anakin
"Everyone without a sword or a lightsaber, move right now," Anakin commanded, slicing off a lizard's head and getting a smack across his face with a tail for his trouble. He gave the corpse a shove with the Force, trying to knock over or slow down the lizard's comrades.
The tail would leave a bruise, assuming he survived for another thirty seconds.
Jaina
It'd been a while since Jaina had fought against genetically engineered nightmare creatures, but her response to them was still almost automatic. Her lightsaber out, she slipped to the back of the pack to try and take some of the things out and maybe buying the others some time.
She figured out quickly that buying time was going to be tough. Mainly Jaina focused on trying to take off their heads, since that was sure to kill them, but trying to fend them off was difficult and she was at the very least making it out of here with some pretty good bruises. She'd really rather not find out what else they could do.
Firekeeper
Blind Seer could smell the creatures before he saw them. They weren't like anything else he'd known- human, Beast, or maimalodalu. There was something just... unnatural, about them. Without hesitation, Blind Seer leapt forward, tackling one of the lizard creatures and tearing in to its throat.
Beside him, Firekeeper moved as well, drawing out her Fang and hacking at the limb of one of the creatures who came too close. It was no sword, true, but she could take a man's head off if she put her mind to it. These things were stronger than humans, but figured she could damage it enough to make it retreat. Or enough to give her a chance to retreat, as much as she hated running from a fight.
Katniss
"Hurry!" Katniss screeched as she leaped up the ladder, shoving the manhole cover out of the way. The lizards were still several feet behind her, but she could smell their bloody, rose-scented breath. These were engineered to unhinge her, to put Snow in her mind alone.
She reached down to help the others, pulling them through the hole. As she stuck her head back into the hole to reach for the last, though, she saw where he was.
Finnick, with his beautiful face contorted in agony, was doing everything he could to fight off the lizard gripping him. It wasn't enough, though. In seconds, he was ripped through, his head lolling. Katniss saw a flash of Annie's wedding dress, felt the sensation of sea air and nets in her hands, and Finnick Odair was gone.
It wasn't until Gale grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back that she remembered to cover the hole, her face wet and white as she did so.
Luke Castellan
Luke was one of the last ones trying to get out of the sewer and had been on the ladder when he heard Finnick struggling. By the time he whipped his head around he could see that it was too late to try to help him.
He winced and quickly looked away, forcing himself to move up the ladder despite the noises he heard behind him, but he couldn't help but think about the guy who had been so friendly to him and had been so happy about getting to marry the girl he loved.
When he got to the surface he quickly got out of everybody's way and found a spot to himself, taking a couple moments to pull himself together. Freaking out could come later, right now he needed to concentrate.
Wesley
Wesley managed to scramble up the ladder with time to spare before the last few stragglers came up, and he did his best to assist everyone who came after him. It was only when the last pair of hands didn't immediately come that he peered down the hole himself, and saw --
Oh. Oh, he was suddenly very nauseous, and -- good lord, Finnick. He drew his head back quickly, not wanting to see any more, and swallowed down the bile rising in his throat.
"Katniss, I -- I'm so sorry, I -- "
-- didn't have a clue what to say.
Jaina
Jaina had been one of the stragglers, and if she thought there was anything she could do to help Finnick before it was too late, she'd have done it. But she knew how hard it was to fight the lizards back, and once she spotted him...
She didn't feel good about leaving anyone behind to suffer that ugly a death, especially when she could feel when he died. Even worse, that tiny part of her that had been persisting in remembering the last time she'd been on a mission that had gone this way was getting less tiny. She determinedly ignored it, standing and letting the others have their moment, knowing they were going to have to keep moving.
Anakin
Anakin had a rough idea which why her thoughts would be tracking right now, which was why he reached out to touch her gently on the shoulder.
Jaina
She just nodded, appreciating the gesture. She wasn't willing to acknowledge what was going on in her head any more than that, though, at least not until this was all over. There'd be time for it later.
Anakin
"Take point," he murmured. "We need a pair of eyes we can trust right now."
Firekeeper
Blind Seer was thankful the distance to the surface wasn't too far; ladders were understandably difficult when you were on four legs. But this at least he could manage with a leap.
Firekeeper hadn't known Finnick beyond a word or two exchanged in the days since they'd all arrived from Fandom, but he'd been Katniss's friend, and that was enough to cause her to mourn his death.
District Thirteen
Very suddenly, a command went through District Thirteen. "All available medical officials and trainees, please report to dock five to board a hovercraft to the Capitol. All available medical officers and trainees."
Primrose Everdeen looked to her mother, who was in the middle of stitching up a man whose intestines were spilling. "I'm going," she said quietly, pressing a kiss to her mother's cheek before darting for the door. Mrs. Everdeen barely had time to look up, let alone argue or stop her.
Ghanima Atreides
Ghanima was already on the move, her limited prescience having twinged a split-second before the announcement began.
She pulled her cloak over the standard Thirteen uniform, fastening the Atreides hawk-clasp as she strode towards the hovercrafts. Something was hinging on the now, and she could almost feel the pathways branching out under their feet.
Warren
Warren didn't even pause for thought after hearing the announcement before he made his way to the dock. His need to be out of Thirteen, doing something, was almost too much to bear. If he was going to be tending to the dying, at least he could do so with the sky overhead.
They needed medics. He wasn't seeing to anything important at just that moment, and he was in desperate need for a stretch of his wings. That worked out nicely.
Karla, Queen of Glacia
Karla was had been on the complete other side of the District from dock five, chasing Prim's stupid cat around. Buttercup (Karla was privately calling him Bastard) seemed to delight in getting close long enough to take a swipe at her before bounding off again.
As soon as the announcement came over the speakers, Karla ignored the cat and took off for dock five at a dead run. But she'd gotten turned around in the labyrinthine tunnels and had trouble navigating her way back. By the time she was rushing out onto the platform, the hovercraft had already taken off and was speeding away through the air.
Karla was going to kick that stupid cat the next time she saw him. Or, well, think about doing that a whole hell of a lot.
Gabrielle of Poteidaia
Gabrielle only paused long enough to make sure the patients she'd been tending were comfortable, and to deliver a few terse instructions to some of the medics lingering behind (that woman seems to sleep better when you talk to her, tread lightly around this boy who's easily startled by loud noises), before slinging a bag of supplies over her shoulder and making her way toward the hovercraft dock.
Even if she'd had time for a moment to reconsider, that had never been an option. Not for her.
Katniss
When they were out and away from the sewer, Katniss' squad would see just how close they were.
Ahead was an array of Capitol buildings, the center of which was President Snow's mansion. Outside of the house were rows of white-uniformed Peacekeepers, and in front of them, seated, crying Capitol children. They didn't appear to be harmed, yet -- just frightened.
Typical, that Snow would protect himself with Capitol children. It was so like him. So like everything in this worthless society.
They didn't have long to ruminate on the unfairness, though, because the Peacekeepers had noticed them, and raised their weapons to shoot.
Anakin
"I really hate this guy," Anakin growled, racing for the nearest group of Peacekeepers and showing them--very briefly and fatally--what a lightsaber was capable of.
Luke Castellan
Luke cursed loudly when he saw the kids, but it didn't really mean anything if you didn't understand ancient Greek. He didn't find many could match up to the gods in terms of cruelty, but even Ares would side eye this guy.
When the Peacekeepers started firing, Luke headed towards the group nearest to him and used Backbiter against them viciously. Between the kids and what happened to Finnick, Luke was feeling particularly vindictive at the moment.
Wesley
Incidentally, Wesley did speak ancient Greek, and he took a moment to mutter "Yes, quite," before diving into his own group of Peacekeepers with his gun at the ready.
Wesley
Children. Children. The ones who had been exempt from the last seventy-five years of torture in the first place. It seemed the Capitol didn't think so highly of them after all.
A Peacekeeper shot at him and narrowly missed his shoulder. Driven by rage at this whole situation -- what these people had done to Katniss, what they were doing to these innocent children -- Wesley seized his gun from his holster, took aim, and shot him through the forehead, relishing the satisfaction when he crumpled to the ground.
It was short-lived, because within moments more of the Peacekeepers were firing at him, but his second gun followed and the adrenaline of the fight (and loathing for these despicable people) kept him on-point.
Jaina
It wasn't as if Jaina had anything good to say about Snow or the Capitol as it was, but when she saw the children, she realized that she could somehow actually think worse of them. "I've got a bad feeling about this," she muttered.
And then the Peacekeepers were shooting, and Jaina had her lightsaber ignited in a second, deflecting the shots aimed toward her as she raced towards them. She was extremely careful not to aim anything back towards the kids, which may have been why she ended up with her right arm exposed enough to get grazed. She immediately decided that as long as her arm was still attached and nothing vital had been hit, she could just switch her lightsaber to her left hand and keep on taking out Peacekepers.
Firekeeper
To a wolf, children were precious, something to be protected at all costs. They ensured the survival of the pack.
No wolf would ever use children in this manner to shield themselves from harm. Her distaste at these actions overwhelmed her distaste at using a gun in combat, and she fired back.
Katniss
From above, there came a hovercraft, dropping eerily recognizable silver parachutes down onto the children protecting Snow's home. The kids all sat up, looking hopeful, even cheering -- they had watched the Games, of course, and knew that parachutes meant gifts, and life, and good things.
Seconds later, the bombs went off, and undersized body parts littered the area.
Wesley
Perhaps it was a mark of his enduring naïveté, but for a fraction of a second, Wesley had the same hopes as the children -- that these parachutes might offer some sort of aid. Sent by District 13, perhaps.
And then came the explosion, and though he was meters away, he staggered back. It didn't sink in immediately, but then -- good lord. Those children. Dead. Exploded, by -- the Capitol? It didn't connect. His mind was fuzzy, but his legs sped up against his will and he raced forward, sick to his stomach, as though there was something he could do to help.
Jaina
It was that prickling at her spine that alerted Jaina to the fact that something was wrong in addition to getting shot at. By the time she was in any position to try and figure out why her danger sense was going off for parachutes...
She felt the deaths, felt the agony and fear of the ones who were lucky enough- or in some cases, not so lucky- to have survived, but it still took her a second to realize that it had actually happened. It was ingrained in her to take stock of the situation immediately, and as soon as she registered what sort of danger the Peacekeepers still posed right now, she decided this didn't make sense, that it would be stupid of the Capitol to take out their protective barrier, to get rid of a shield between the rebels and the President.
She did still have the bad feeling from before, which was exactly why she was now looking to see where she'd be most useful.
Anakin
For a second, Anakin just stood there, fighting back a wave pure rage. Those had been children--some not older than Grace or Jan or Juliet--and the monumental amount of wrong that had just occurred while he'd been unable to stop it was hard for him to comprehend.
It was only when he realized his danger sense was still warning him about an immediate threat that he glanced around for Katniss and the others.
Whatever this attack was, it wasn't over yet.
Luke Castellan
For a second there, Luke had foolishly thought the balloons were help from 13. Then the bombs went off and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach, seeing all of those kids die in front of him.
It usually took a lot to shake him, but that did it for sure. For a moment he could do nothing but stare. Not for the first time, he thought about how mortals were worse than the monsters a lot of the time.
Firekeeper
Though she'd recognized what the humans had planned for the children, it still took a moment for her to actually process that they'd gone through with it.
Grief and rage built up in Firekeeper's heart as she leapt forward with a snarl, ready to- help, rip someone apart, do something. Anything. It was Blind Seer who stopped her, though, stepping in her path and letting her know there was nothing she could do here. The victims were beyond her rudimentary skills at tying bandages and cleaning wounds.
Katniss
Katniss was running, and running towards the children -- she could get past them now, she could grieve for them later -- when the second hovercraft appeared.
Swarms of District Thirteen medics dropped out, running to the kids, tending wounds. Katniss was about twenty feet off when she saw them -- the blonde braid, the ducktail of the white shirt, the uncertain glance over her shoulder.
Prim.
What was a thirteen year-old doing in bat --
And that was when her world exploded all over again.
Anakin
Anakin reminded himself that he had perpetuated some pretty heinous things on his own--Luke's hand, Leia's entire planet--and that shoved the instinct aside to throw up everything he'd eaten in his whole life, at least for the short term.
It didn't stop him from picking himself up off of the ground where he'd landed, hope the ringing in his ears was going to be a semi-permanent thing, and looking for the rest of his group.
Wesley
Wesley was running and running and somehow managing not to trip, spotting familiar faces (was that Warren? Good lord, that -- that couldn't be -- Prim!) and managing to carry himself further than he thought he could go. And then came a noise, and an explosion, and a searing pain in his chest as though his skin was being pressed flat against a hot iron, and he was thrown backward by the force of the second explosion.
He knew it -- knew everything -- the instant it happened, his brain whirring and skin searing and every nerve ending on fire. "Coin," he breathed, and he got to his feet with horrific images playing back in his mind.
And then he remembered belatedly, and his eyes went huge as he spun around in search of that familiar dark hair somewhere in the crowd.
"Katniss."
Jaina
Jaina never had a ton of purpose in the aftermath of anything, so she'd decided to keep to the fringes of things to fill in where she was needed, especially when she saw the medics arrive. Which she thought was a little strange. She'd never seen medics show up that fast unless they'd been stationed there specifically knowing things could get bad fast. Immediately she decided that must be why they were there.
When the second explosion came, she decided why didn't matter.
She was close enough to get knocked back by the blast, but there was no further injury that she noticed. She felt like she was going to be sick, like as if the children hadn't been enough, that this was all spiraling even more out of control and she couldn't help but wonder if things would somehow get worse.
And then she spotted Katniss, and it clicked, what must have happened, and it didn't at all help the sick feeling.
Luke Castellan
Luke had been running around trying to help where he could and keep track of where everyone was when he saw the second hovercraft show up. There was a brief moment of confusion (how did they get there so fast?) but before anything really clicked the bombs went off again.
He was close enough to be knocked back by the explosion, but luckily he didn't sustain much damage aside from a piece of debris that clocked him in the jaw and made his mouth bleed. He couldn't even feel it. Adrenaline kicked in and all he could focus on was getting up and trying to figure out what was going on.
When he realized what happened and who was responsible, Luke felt nothing but anger. He wanted nothing more than to get a hold of the people responsible and pay them back for what they did. This was no way to win.
He was too pissed and tired to realize what a hypocrite he was being, cut him a break.
Warren
Oh god, children. Warren had been expecting to come in to tend to some pretty horrifying injuries, but this was...
He held his breath, trying to sort out who needed help the most out of the few who were still alive. He barely had the time to pick a child from the mess, one who looked as though her injuries were life-threatening at best, before the second round of explosions hit.
Everything went white. Warren could feel fire and shrapnel tearing through him, leaving him in no better condition than most of the children that he'd joined the medics to help.
And then everything went black.
Ghanima
Ghanima had been one of the first out of her hovercraft, and already had one child evaluated for evacuation when she felt a pull, and the clamor of her inner tau rose as one in response to the Atreides Prescience.
GogogogogogogoGO!
Ghanima grabbed her change and the medic working with her and moved. Her mind was her reality, and the Weirding Way placed her a good fifty feet away at the exact moment the second wave of bombs detonated.
"Stay here," she ordered her companion from Thirteen. "I shall bring others as I can."
Firekeeper
Firekeeper had caught sight of Katniss just long enough to see a flicker of recognition in her roommate's eyes as the new arrivals dropped out. At first she'd thought maybe it was because their other companions from Fandom had accompanied them, but then she realized no, that hadn't been where Katniss's gaze had rested. They'd been on the girl. Prim. Firekeeper considered Katniss part of the odd little pack she'd collected in Fandom, which meant Prim was, by extension, part of that as well.
There wasn't anything Firekeeper's ability to sterilize and bandage a wound could do for this. A slow, mournful howl rose from her throat, and after a moment, Blind Seer joined in.
This should not have happened.
Katniss
The smoke was everywhere, and the fire, and she was on fire.
Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on.
She ripped through her pain, tearing towards where she'd seen Prim. She couldn't see, she couldn't feel -- she was fire itself, and the burning was normal, it was everything.
She'd seen her little sister on fire. She had to find her.
There was a hovercraft above, which she was ignoring, and a million people screaming her name. She only cared about one, though, and she was going to run through the flames to find her.
Anakin
"Katniss!" Anakin was up and racing after her, using the Force to enhance his speed.
Katniss
She didn't hear him -- or at least, her brain didn't register that there was a sound other than the screams in her ears. She could hear Prim's, echoing over and over again in her mind, and she had to get to her right now. She had to save her.
Katniss couldn't comprehend that it was too late. It was like the flames licking at her skin, the burning of her clothes. All of this was far away, impossible. She just had to get to her sister.
Anakin
Anakin tackled her at the knees, trying to use his body to smother some of the flames.
The smell of burning flesh was bringing back all-too-vivid memories of Mustafar, but he shoved those aside to deal with the problem before him.
"She's gone, sweetheart."
Katniss
Katniss heard him. She heard the words, she understood what they meant, but she refused to believe it was true. Everything here had been set in motion by her need to save Prim. She couldn't have failed now.
She couldn't.
The 'No' that ripped out of her was less a word, more a howl, and she was struggling against Anakin's grip -- her nails scratching out against him, her feet and arms thrashing against him. Anything to break the hold so she could get to her sister.
Anakin
Anakin held on tightly, smothering the remaining flames and silently taking Katniss's abuse.
Somewhere in the back of his head, he was pretty sure he'd earned at least this.
Katniss
Eventually, her thrashing lessened as Katniss' screams gave way to sobs, shaking against Anakin. The physical pain was starting to register, dwarfed by the emotional pain.
She'd lost.
Anakin
He didn't waste his time or his breath telling her the little lies of loss--about how it would get better, how it would stop hurting--because he knew it wouldn't, and instead stuck with small, easily followable instructions: "You need attention for those burns or it'll hurt even worse than they do now. Let's see who we can find to help."
Katniss
"Have to get her," was the phrase she managed to mumble, and from there out, that was what Katniss focused on. Even if she wasn't fighting as hard, the words, "I have to get her," and "Prim" became an endless chant mumbled into Anakin's uniform.
Anakin
Anakin looked across Katniss's shoulder at the devastation. "I'm not sure that will help anything, young one," he murmured.
Katniss
"I have to get her," she repeated, her mouth forming the words, her voice hoarse. She wasn't even listening or thinking anymore, acting purely on instinct as her body started to go into shock.
Anakin
Anakin honestly wasn't sure there would be much left to find. "We should find someone to take care of your burns first," he decided, trying to find a place to rest his hand that wouldn't cause her pain.
Warren
Warren wasn't dead.
It would have taken a lot more than that to kill him. But there had been a few moments where he hadn't been too sure, after he'd regained consciousness with large amounts of himself missing, most of his clothing burned to char. He'd pulled in a few deep breaths while he reoriented himself, while he tried to remember what happened, while bones knit and flesh rebuilt itself and he was going to ignore little things like how he was pretty sure he was currently missing one hand, most of his face, and how there were large bits of shrapnel sticking out of him, lodged in his insides, new muscle forming indiscriminantly no matter what appeared to be in the way.
He wasn't dead.
He sat up and looked around, smoke burning at his eyes. Fire everywhere. His feathers were still smouldering. He was sitting in fire. There was noise everywhere. Panic everywhere. He had to get out of the flames. He crawled until he had enough leg to stand on again, and then he stood and he limped until the people he could see with his blood-clouded eyes weren't just bodies. Familiar faces, even.
"... Katniss?"
She wasn't looking so good, thought the pot as he regarded the current state of the kettle.
Anakin
Anakin gaped at Warren when he turned toward the familiar voice. "How are you still walking and talking?" he demanded.
Warren
"... That bad, huh?"
Yes, Warren. It was that bad.
He swallowed, not daring to look down at himself. A reaction like that meant that he really, really didn't want to know.
"I've got a healing factor," he explained, mostly coherently. The side of his face was stitching itself up nicely. "If I'm not dead, I'll get better." Which was useful. If kind of gross to watch. "How is she?"
Anakin
"Not great," Anakin said. "Lots of burns, but mostly shut down." He gestured behind them to the destruction. "Prim was in there."
Warren
"Prim." There was a moment's silence while Warren's mind raced to catch up to that, tried to wrap itself around everything that had just happened. "The medics. We were... There was a bomb, and..."
He bit his lip, mostly to shut himself up, and was rewarded with the taste of soot and blood filling his mouth.
"Oh, God. Prim was in there." About a stone's throw away from where Warren had been, actually. Most of the medics had been. "I... I should..." He looked back in the direction he'd come from. There was no way they'd be finding any survivors in that.
Anakin
"You should take Katniss back for care," Anakin said, softly but firmly. "I'll round up the rest of our people."
Warren
"But I can..." Warren winced a little. No, there wasn't anything he could do, was there? Not in the wake of that, and not in the shape he was in. So he nodded, giving his wings a stretch. It hurt like hell, and it was going to take a lot of extra work with his feathers in such a state of disarray, but they'd serve the purpose. They'd get him into the air with a passenger in his arms, if nothing else. "I can take her."
Anakin
"Be careful," Anakin cautioned. "There's no telling what the counter-attack might look like."
Warren
Warren gave a numb little nod, looking at Anakin's face. It seemed to be one of the few things around here that wasn't on fire at the moment, which was... good.
"I'll go quickly." He held out his arms, nodding toward Katniss. "She'll be safe."
So help him, he'd twist around and take the whole of the next explosion himself so that she wouldn't have to, if something else hit them out of nowhere.
Anakin
Anakin handed Katniss over gently. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
Warren
Carefully gathering Katniss up in his arms, ignoring the pain that shot through his limbs as his own healing injuries were jostled, Warren nodded, and then looked to the sky for some safe route to escape by. A hovercraft was coming in, barely visible through the smoke. That looked to be their best bet.
"Be careful," he said to Anakin, because in the wake of all of that, he couldn't think of anything else that needed to be said.
And then he crouched, spread his wings, and leapt upwards, his wings catching the rising heat in the air and letting them ride those thermals to safety with a mercifully small amount of effort. Scant comfort, while staring down at the fires below.
Wesley
Wesley barely even noticed that he was climbing onto a hovercraft, because his eyes never left the flailing limbs that belonged to Katniss. The searing pain he'd felt in his chest only moments ago didn't seem so searing anymore, but that physical pain was replaced by an endless mental loop of images of Prim -- at least, the images of her that he had from his limited time knowing her. Somehow his brain managed to muster up enough to make him sick to his stomach.
He was queasy. Queasy and mildly burned and -- unable to move his eyes from the most painful thing he'd ever seen. Katniss' grief was worse than anything he'd seen so far.
Ghanima Atreides
There was a limit to what even an Atreides could accomplish.
Ghanima had another badly burned person in her arms, teeth gritted against their crises of pain as she used the Way to take them to safety with the others she'd managed to evacuate. Her hair and cloack were singed, and there were burns on her face and arms. But nothing she could not heal from, given a day of meditation and enough Spice to accelerate the cellular process.
Another thought, another rearrangement of her reality, and Ghanima was back amid the flames, peering through the smoke and desperately trying to find anyone else not yet past saving.
Which was when she saw the small body amongst all the others, unremarkable except for the fact that she recognized it.
Despite what little the fires had left recognizable.
Ghanima scooped up Primrose Everdeen very carefully. She would shed water for the dead later; now, returning her sister's body to the hovercrafts was all Ghanima could do for Katniss now.
Gabrielle of Poteidaia
It was no new concept to Gabrielle that in war, children might easily become casualties and that commanders ruthless enough wouldn't hesitate to target them, but she'd hoped -- in that stubbornly optimistic way that was one of her greatest strengths and vulnerabilities -- that Thirteen would hesitate. No matter how cynical and calculating a move it might have been on Snow's part to protect himself with the children, these people fighting for their freedom couldn't be that cold, could they?
She should have known better. She knew better, and when the bombs went off she could swear, as the bile rose in her throat, that the conflagration echoed a little bit in her soul.
Karla, Queen of Glacia
Karla stared at the screen as the second set of bombs ripped through the remaining children and the medics.
Warren. Prim. Ghanima.
Katniss.
[WARNING FOR VIOLENCE AND CHARACTER DEATHS. YES, PLURAL. Preplayed with everyone, I love you all, I'm going to go cry again, and we're almost done. And coded by Fry!]