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TREECH, AS HE WAS FINALLY ABLE TO CALL HIMSELF AGAIN, PULLED OUT A CHAIR FOR CARI. She handed her cane off to him with thanks, allowing him to take the spot next to her.
"That's a beautiful piece," the man beside Treech remarked, peering at the walking stick over the lens of his glasses. "May I?"
Treech nodded, passing the object over to the man who spun it, observing the intricate carvings running over the oak body. He had made it himself, once it became harder for his wife to move. The handle took the shape of a fish, fin and head both pointed up, the rest of the cane covered in small dots.
"Is there meaning to the patterns?"
"Constellations," Cari explained, "Twenty-five of them, each for someone lost."
The man, Beetee, he introduced himself, passed back the cane as the doors opened. In walked the face of everything. Sorrow ridden Katniss Everdeen. "What's this?"
"The remaining Victors." Alma Coin was a woman Cari had come to despise. Upon numerous occasions, Treech had to hold Cari back from giving her a piece of her mind. "Won't you join us?"
The Mockingjay complied, taking a seat between the other two victors of her District. Ironic, Cari mused, the District with the worst odds sits today with the most victors.
"Treech Flanagan." Haymitch introduced the now Eighty-Three year old to the Girl-on-Fire. "Victor of the Tenth Hunger Games. Presumed dead until just before the Quarter Quell. Mags brought him to our attention."
"Pleasure to meet you," Treech smiled across the table, "This is my wife, Araucaria. She likes being called 'Four'. She's the reason I'm alive." Cari responded with a mere roll of her eyes, it was far more than that.
"I have invited you all here for several reasons," Coin interrupted. She had been hesitant to allow Cari to join them, given she wasn't a victor.
"I've lived in Panem longer than you have been alive," Cari had shot back, wacking the woman's feet with her cane, "Where my husband goes, I go."
"I have an announcement. I have taken the burden and the honor of declaring myself Interim President of Panem."
Treech gave a snort.
"Interim?" Haymitch asked. "Exactly how long is that interim?"
"We have no way of knowing for certain." Coin responded. "But it's clear that people are far too emotional right now to make a rational decision."
