The harsh spotlights gleamed against Eden's smile like the setting sun gleaming against the sea.

One.

"Ladies and gentlemen, could I trouble you to take your seats?" The host's grin was as artificial as the ultramodern chair whose odd curves barely supported his bulk. One elegantly adorned hand made a vague gesture towards the thunderously applauding audience, their painted faces alight with glee at the sight of her, their adored victor. Hail the conquering hero!

Or at least, hail the conqueror.

Eden understood this part of the dance, at any rate. She allowed a giggle to escape her lips, and turned to face the howling mob and bask in their attention, as was her due. She waved and grinned like a windblown skeleton, all the while her eyes skimming over the faces so garishly adorned. Really, it was quite ironic: all that effort to make themselves look different, and she couldn't tell one apart from the other if her life depended on it. All she remembered was a blur of hue and sound; that, and a thousand eyes watching her with a hunger that she had only before seen on a huge gray shadow beneath the waves.

In due time, her adoring public quieted and returned to their seats with an air of temporarily spent euphoria. Eden folded her legs and sat neatly on the edge of her own seat, an ungodly contraption that was indistinguishable from a particularly sleek torture device. She smiled sweetly at the host, who responded with what he probably believed was a wise, benevolent nod that belonged on a Roman patrician.

"Miss Karam—may I call you Eden?" She nodded with childlike speed, and he continued in deep basso tones. "Eden, I'm certain you can understand why your presence here tonight is quite the coup. A victor twice over, and at such a tender young age as well! While no one here in the Capitol could possibly forget your skill, I myself was truly surprised to see you hold your own so well against a group of past victors, particularly ones who were so much older than you. How do you feel after such an impressive victory?"

An irritating question that bordered on the blasé; nonetheless, she wasn't here to pick out the numerous idiocies inherent in her interviewer. He was, after all, presumably what the people in the Capitol wanted.

"I'm feeling pretty good, actually!" She chirped. "My leg still hurts a bit where I scraped it against the shark, but really, who wouldn't give a bit of skin to see such a beautiful fish up close and personal?"

The audience chuckled. Her host smiled indulgently.

"I must confess I've never thought of it that way. Do you think it was nice touch to the arena, then?"

"Oh, definitely! Really, I just loved the arena this year— it was so much prettier than the one from my first Games. Did you know I'd never seen the sea before? Well, I obviously saw it in pictures, but not in person. And the beach was nice, and the forest had a lot of really pretty trees, at least before everything was on fire. I kind of wish they could have left it alone— most up my supplies were up a tree, and I didn't like having to eat raw clams from the rocks. Clams are gross."

There was another murmur of laughter, and someone in the mob of spectators called "Hear, hear!" She threw a glance in that general direction. Two.

Her smile wasn't disturbed in the slightest as the host cleared his throat. "I must confess—" Oh, him and his confessions! Confess to the priest, not to the fires from on high— "That you seem to be a bit more...chipper than most victors fresh from arena. Normally we have to cut post-Games interviews shorter than we like so they can get some rest and recover from the experience. You seem like you actually enjoyed the experience. Is that right?"

Ah...finally.

"You know what? I think I actually did have a good time," she replied after allowing the appropriate beat. "It's always more exciting than school, and I love using all my skill and knowledge against people who know what they're doing. Plus, all that time alone really gave me some time to think away from all the noise of ordinary life, and I managed to figure out some things about people. I don't really like philosophy, but I think I found one that works for me. It made things a whole lot clearer, and in that way I think everything in the arena was really good for me. Does that make sense?"

"Of course it does, Eden. Would you like to tell us what you figured out from your time in the arena?"

There was his weakness: not decadence, as she had first thought upon seeing his indigo-clad mass and extraneous chins, but in curiosity. It was a matter of basic simplicity that hosts should never ask about the ideas of their pet gladiators. To do so was to concede that they could have thought when such a luxury was not granted by the Capitol, to admit that on some level they had humanity beyond that which lived on the screen. He must have been genuinely curious about what a child would think about the world after a Games, and her innocuous appearance made him forget the cautionary tales of ranting victors dragged off the air by force. She allowed her expression to turn pensive, eyes flickering away to gaze into the middle distance above the audience.

Three.

"You know, I've always thought every person in the world was put here for a reason," she mused, the microphone hidden in her bubblegum pink dress carrying the words out across the entire audience. "It could be for something big and flashy like curing the Gray Plague, or ending a war, or starting one. Maybe they're just here to kiss the right girl at the right time, or to be a friendly face to someone in need. Maybe the only reason they're alive is for their cake-making skills!"

She waited for the accompanying laughter, but the citizens merely sat silently in their seats, dozens of birdlike eyes fixed on her, unblinking. When it became clear that was the only response she was going to get, she continued:

"For a long time, I wondered what I was supposed to do here in the land of the living. It didn't seem quite right that I should have to wait so long to figure it out— after all, everything else came so quickly. Why should something so simple be beyond my grasp? The more I thought about it, the more things didn't make sense. Ever since I was little, I absorbed battle like I was born for it, but I couldn't be a Peacekeeper like my family. Peacekeepers exist to crush dissent and compel obedience to the rule of law and peace, but nothing more than that. Something about the very idea of that kind of a life never quite sat well with me, and it wasn't until I was eleven that I really understood why."

She paused, her eyes tracing around the room. Four. "It was the name: Peacekeepers keep the peace. So long as there is compliance, there is tolerance. That's the crucial difference, I think: they walk the streets every day and see weakness and error in every person around them, but as long as everyone obeys the letter of the law, they never need to fix it. Me? I walk the streets, but I loathe the imperfections, the casual arrogances and stupidities that make everyone human. Everyone claiming that their own faults are anything more than a violation of how things truly ought to be, even extolling their 'quirks' as something that made them better, as if that could possibly make sense! The day I realized that, I knew I was going to be different. I was something...else."

"That's when I thought of the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games, where weakness is punishable by swift, immediate death! The Hunger Games, where every crippling strike with a hand or sword was understood to be only natural if the victim was too slow or stupid to evade it. Where my beautiful purpose was finally recognized as right. What existence could possibly be more perfect? I could live, and kill, and be everything I was meant to become. So I volunteered when I was eleven, entered when I was twelve, and I decided that I was here to be a Victor."

Five.

Eden smoothed down the fluffy dress, allowing her smile to fade for the first time that evening.

"And then the Games ended. And I was back in the ugly world where no one understood what a crime it was to allow imperfection to exist within themselves or others. After the glorious time in the arena, I felt like I was being strangled bit by bit. If I had been weak, if I had been human—" The word came out with the bile of an obscenity. "—I would have fallen into despair. As it was, I cried when the Reaping conditions were announced. My cousins thought I was sad, and tried to comfort me. They didn't understand that to reenter the Games again, this time with people as strong and skilled as me, was nothing short of paradise."

Six. Seven.

"Eden," The host began, shifting uncomfortably. "I really think this conversation is going into subjects we don't really need—"

"But I'm just getting to the part where I can answer your question!" She interrupted. "These Games are when I finally understood why I was so unhappy. It didn't take me long to realize that everyone in that Games had weaknesses too, I had thought that they would be like me. That they would understand. Even now, I think that only Miss Grimnell understood at the end. So I decided to take it upon myself to destroy any person less perfect than myself, and thereby rid the world of imperfection until it was like things were at the beginning: a true paradise, a garden for all that lives perfectly."

She held up a single finger, even as her gaze held everyone in the stadium spellbound. Eight. Nine. Ten. "Percy was afraid. When his ally died, something broke inside of him, and I knew it was never going to heal straight. He was the easiest to kill just because I don't think he wanted to live anymore. I cut his throat in the night, but even while the blood was flowing he didn't move a muscle. Funny, huh? Even Miss Grimnell fought at the end."

A second finger. Her brows drew together in a scowl. "Hertzel was stupid. I watched him with that mutt in the water, watched it flatter him and try to lure him in with gentle pleas and appeals to conscience. He was the worst sort— he still thought that weakness was strength, and that kindness belonged in the arena in place of hunger. Safe on the cove, I began to cry and call for help. He pitied me and swam to help." A wintry smile touched her lips, and she lifted one bandaged arm. "I had cut myself and let some blood trickle into the water for almost an hour before he made the attempt. The shark was very grateful for my alert."

A third finger appeared. "Ashre was the only one to really fight me. I think that makes him the smartest. After I came back to the island, we found each other in the wastes. We didn't speak. We just fought."

A dreamy, nearly euphoric grin transformed her innocent mask into an all-ancient-look of ecstasy. "He favored his right side. I saw through his feint, dislocated his knee, and bashed his brains out against one of the mostly-solid logs. That one was my favorite, I think."

Eleven.

There was a decidedly nervous edge to the host's voice as he made a gesture to someone behind her. "Eden, I think that's all the time we have today. Thank you so much for—"

"That's when I understood where I went wrong before. I left the arena alive, but it was awfully silly to call myself Victor. I was getting ahead of myself, announcing Victory when the Games had barely begun!"

A white boot in the Peacekeeper style entered her field of vision: a large man was going around her death trap of a chair, no doubt to escort her from the stage. Her expression never wavered; she automatically scanned the size and proportions of the approaching leg, approximating the height of the man attached to it without so much as moving a muscle.

Twelve.

Twelve Peacekeepers at various points around the arena, all armed and trained to use deadly force. More than enough for any single human, even a two-time veteran of the Hunger Games. 'Human,' of course, was the operative word.

They were deadly, but she was Eden.

Her eyes flickered to the host. One hand shot out behind her and to the left, snatching the gun from the Peacekeeper's holster. Her thumb flicked the safety off as the man realized what had happened and shouted reaching to regain his tool.

Without looking at him, Eden raised the gun to where she knew the gap between body armor and helmet would be and pulled the trigger.

"You see, even if I could never live to see a world free of weakness, what a wonderful life I could have just in the pursuit of it! Wouldn't that be the most beautiful existence you could imagine?" The crowd had let out a great roar of panic, and were struggling to flee, hampering the progress of the most distant Peacekeepers in the process. She stood leisurely and fired two more shots without bothering to check her angle. Her aim was true: two more white armored corpses clattered to the ground. She strode toward the host, her pink gown trailing through the slowly growing pool of blood from her first victim on the stage. The enormous man sat frozen in place, eyes wide and uncomprehending at the finality of her approach. She stopped right in front of him, and met his frightened eyes.

"And," She murmured for his ears alone. "If I got that much pleasure eradicating weakness from the strong, those hardened by the Districts and the Games...how wonderful will it feel to end the failings of an entire, disgustingly decadent Capitol?"

To his credit, his gaze hardened. "You're a fucking demon."

"No...actually, I'm beginning to think I'm the opposite."

She lifted the gun and pointed it at his forehead. "After all, to err is human— but to forgive is the height of idiocy."

The gun cried out with a the joy of an infant's laugh.