Hunger Games: Fandom Style

Queen of Ice, King of Cold

He couldn't have saved her. He knew that, intellectually. She was dead as soon as the first mutt buried its claws in her leg. When she fell, she should have stopped breathing; she had been irrevocably doomed. Had he gone back for her, they would have overwhelmed him instantly. Had he somehow managed to carry her away, they would have caught up immediately. Had he been miraculously granted speed or the Gamemakers had called the mutts away, she would have died of blood loss. Had she hung on by her fingertips, she would have been weak and ill, unlikely to survive for long.

She had stopped living the instant she hit the ground. That had not stopped her from surviving an agonized minute more.

A minute where he had looked back and seen her pleading eyes and kept running. A minute where her screams had seared their way into his memory in punishment for his unforgivable act of cowardice.

He knew, intellectually, that he couldn't have saved her. He had run the odds, considered every possible scenario and miracle.

He had done that after he had left the arena. He had done it over and over again, every sleepless night, every time the nightmares woke him screaming. He had not, of course, had time to do that then. He hadn't thought at all, really. He had just run.

Flynn could still see that golden hair thrown back by the wind. He saw it every night in his dreams.

He could still see the gold died red by thick clumps of slowly drying blood. He saw it every night in his nightmares.

Now President Snow stood over him and made him tie the knot on another failed tribute. No, not tribute. It made a living, beautiful girl into someting to be traded, like a gold coin, or a sheaf of wheat. She was not a tribute. She was Elsa, beautiful and mysterious, powerful and unattainable, and heartbreakingly, touchingly human. She was the girl who had covered the arena with ice, but she was also the girl who had hidden in the rail car when Hans' attentions had become too much. She was the girl with a slow, creeping pink blush.

The silver silk parachute trembled in his suddenly shaking hands. "This isn't her fault. Don't do this."

"An example must be made, Mr. Ryder. She was the one who started this epidemic of the unnatural. Her death will finish it."

No, she hadn't started it. Some invisible force had thrown Morgana back and frightened her into leaving. And careful viewing of the early footage would show that Leah had healed far too quickly from her injury.

Elsa, however, was the easiest to blame. The most visible. The best object lesson.

She was a girl. A girl with a terrified, accident prone sister at home. A girl who had worn work gloves everywhere without a trace of self-consciousness visible.

He crumpled the silk in his fist. "No."

President Snow raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"I said no." He stood. "She doesn't deserve this, and you know it. I can't stop you, but I won't help you either."

President Snow smiled coldly. "Where's that practical boy who knew better than to throw his life away with empty gestures?"

"I threw my life away when I chose to run. Breathing isn't the same as living. And I will happily throw my last breath away to save whatever scrap of life I might have left."

President Snow shrugged. "As you wish." He nodded to an assistant. "Send in the spare."

Flynn Rider watched in horror as a slowly leaking vial of blood was lowered into the arena and flown across a vampire's path.

Thirsty. He was so thirsty. With Leah gone there was nothing to distract him, nothing but the smell of -