As The Snow Falls

The reapings for the eleventh Hunger Games begin three months after Coriolanus returns home.

He will never forget the look in Tigris' eyes when she realised who Coriolanus Snow had become. The darling little cousin she loved like a brother, and the promising young student who did everything to ensure Lucy Gray's survival was gone. Coriolanus vowed to never love anyone again that day, because loving Lucy Gray had made him make the foolish decisions that had gotten him shipped off to the shithole that was District 12. His love for her had made him almost as foolish as Sejanus, poor, foolish Sejanus, whose love had seen him to the end of a noose. He knew better than anyone that Sejanus loved him, because why wouldn't he? Coriolanus was his best friend, and one of the only Capitol citizens their age who tolerated his company. As far as Coriolanus was concerned, Sejanus and his parents should have stayed in District 2, where they belonged. The district people were beneath the Capitol, and beneath them was where they ought to stay.

Coriolanus' expression is unflinching as he watches the eleventh reaping. Many of the tributes cry, and some try to escape, but the girl from 12 is utterly hysterical. Peacekeepers rip her from her older sister's arms and drag her to the stage, kicking and screaming for someone, anyone to save her. She's a pretty young thing, with dark hair, and a rainbow dress just like Lucy Gray's. When she gets a pick axe in the back of her head from the District 5 boy, Coriolanus closes his eyes and pretends that he was the boy, putting the axe in Lucy Gray's head.

By the time of the 25th Hunger Games, Coriolanus is the newly-minted head gamemaker. He'd quickly risen through the ranks, and his ideas of a victor's village, changing arenas, and giving the winning tributes extra food for their districts had been implemented with roaring success. For his first year on the job, Coriolanus designs a snow-covered arena, with a frozen lake, huskies with a bite force strong enough to break bones like matchsticks, reindeer with stabbing bladed antlers, and snowy owls that spit venom. It's his game this year, and he wants everyone in Panem to know. The tributes sent to die this year are all voted in by their districts, so many of them are people whom nobody would miss. Four are orphans, one is a loner who doesn't have many friends, three are criminals, and one is so severely disabled that she can't even tie her own shoes. The districts thought that the Capitol people were monsters, but they were monsters too, for choosing children to die simply because no one would miss them, or because they were burdensome. It was wasteful. The Capitol killed children for good reason. The districts killed children on a whim. That he was sure of.

By the time of the 50th Hunger Games, Coriolanus Snow has become president of Panem. He's taken a backseat to the games now, as the pageantry of the games no longer interests him. It's become less about punishment for the districts, and more about silly primetime entertainment. All he wants to do now is keep the districts beneath the Capitol where they belong. This year, double the amount of tributes are being sent into the arena, but there's still only going to be one victor. The idea of a victor seems silly to some; if the Capitol just wanted to punish the districts, it would be easier to round up 23 children at random and execute them, but the games aren't just about punishment. No, the Hunger Games were a means of control and division. The games made the parents of the fallen tributes hate the victors who'd killed their children, and in turn, made them hate the districts the victors came from. They kept the districts divided, and the division quashed any real hope of rebellion, for the only way a rebellion would succeed is if all of the districts united against the Capitol. Only then would they have a chance at destroying their oppressors, but because of the games, the districts hated each other to not join hands, and fight for a better future.

The 74th Hunger Games surprises Coriolanus. The few who are alive to remember Lucy Gray think that his obsession with Katniss is because she reminds him of her, but she doesn't. Katniss reminds him of poor, foolish Sejanus Plinth, in that she does what she thinks is right without thinking of the consequences. Her act of rebellion reminds him a little of his act of rebellion, his cheating the games to keep the girl he loved alive, even though Katniss doesn't love Peeta Mellark. She acts like she does, and people buy it, but Coriolanus knows that her love is a bald-faced lie, put on solely for her survival. Her little act of rebellion sparks more little acts of rebellion, and for the first time in his life, Coriolanus faces a revolution. He grows reckless in his attempts to maintain the Capitol's power, and his own power, and then there is no Capitol anymore, and no more President Snow. He's Coriolanus again now, and he'll spend his final moments being nothing more than Coriolanus, Capitol citizen despised by all. No one is with him in the end, not Tigris, not his granddaughter, not any of his servants, no one. No one wants to be there for Coriolanus as he dies. He lived like a king, and now, he'll die like a pauper. Like the district children in the games.