I stand in a studio, behind a wall that will surely be a wrecked warplace on the green screen. I have my axes in one hand and a pole (that will be turned into a flag on the screen) in the other.

"Cinna's final touch," Effie says as she pins my gold mockingjay pin to my suit. My mockingjay suit that Cinna designed for me.

She looks at me. My hair is in a single plait, curling round to my front. There is layer upon layer of makeup on my face, and apart from that, my suit covers the rest of my body.

"Everyone's either gonna kiss you, kill you, or be you," Effie concludes, running off the stage and behind the cameras.

"Perfect," Plutarch's voice comes from the editing studio beyond the stage. "Absolutely perfect. Now, let's bring up the setting."

The war ground setting obviously comes up in the studio, but I'm none the wiser. "A little wind," Plutarch pushes another button, making the fans in front of me spin and make my hair blow around a bit.

"Okay, Willow, we're gonna start you down on one knee, and when you're ready, you're gonna rise up, raise your flag in the air and deliver your line," Plutarch directs.

"Okay," I say unsurely.

But, looking back, I should've known this was going to crash and burn as soon as he said that.

"And remember, you've just stormed the outskirts of the Capitol, arm in arm with your brothers and sisters."

"Okay."

I go down to one knee, waiting for around ten seconds before rising up and shouting my very bad line.

"People of Panem, we fight, we dare we-"

I stop, having forgotten the line.

"Does she know the line?" Plutarch asks.

"Yes," I say, rolling my eyes. It's not my fault their rubbish lines are stupid.

"She's warming up!" Effie exclaims excitedly.

"Okay, okay, alright," Plutarch says good naturedly as I kneel down again. "With energy - go!"

I stand up. "People of Panem, we fight, we dare to end this hunger for justice!"

"You've just been in battle!" Plutarch shouts from the studio. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you've just been in battle. Let's try it again, whenever you're ready."

I kneel down for the third time, clutching my axes close.

"People of Panem, we fight, we dare to end this hunger for justice!"

This poor effort leaves Plutarch and Effie speechless as the sound of sarcastic clapping fills the studio. And Haymitch walks in.

He wears a beanie hat and the grey Thirteen uniform, a dead look on his face. I know why this must be. Thirteen has a ban of all alcohol.

"And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies," he says. Even if he's lost his drunk spirit, he's still the same old sarcastic yet smart man.

I hate him, now, though. He didn't save Austin like we agreed, but got me. He left Austin to die. "Hello Katniss," Haymitch says, blowing his nose on a grey handkerchief. "Is this how you greet an old friend?"

"Maybe I don't recognise you sober," I reply scathingly.

Wiping his red nose one last time, Haymitch lays out plainly. "I guess it looks as bad as it feels."

☘︎☘︎☘︎

My ghastly propo appears on the screen in command, it's sound filling the room.

"People of Panem, we fight, we dare to end this hunger for justice!"

Gale, Plutarch, Coin, Boggs and I sit around the table. Haymitch, who's sort of leading this, sits in a seat at the front of the room, but now, he bounds up to the screen.

"Madam President, indulge me, if you would," he begins. "Let's all think of a moment where Willow Hawthorne genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent throw with an axe. And not where Austin was making you like her. No, I want you all to think of a moment where she made you feel something real."

Effie's hand shoots up immediately. "When she volunteered for Primrose, at the reaping."

"Yeah," Haymitch said. He deleted whatever was on the board in front of us. "I hope that wasn't important," then he began to write 'volunteered for Prim'.

"Okay," he says, once he's finished. "Anything else?"

"Oh, when she sang that song for little Rue!" Effie clutches a hand to her heart.

"Oh, yeah, who didn't get choked up at that," Haymitch writes 'song for Rue'. "You know, Effie, I think I like you better with all that makeup."

"Well, I like you better sober," she replies cheekily.

"When she chose Rue as an ally, as well," Beetee chimes in.

"Yeah," says Haymitch, though he does not write this down. "So, what do all these have in common?"

"No one told her what to do," Gale says, eyes angled at the table.

"Yeah," Katniss agreed. "So maybe we should all just stop putting words in her mouth and let her do her own thing."

"Please," I add unwittingly.

"Unscripted, yes, so maybe we should just leave her alone," Beetee suggests.

"And wash her face," Boggs suddenly busts out. "She's still a girl, you made her look thirty five."

I smile slightly at this one.

"The opportunities for spontaneity are obviously lacking below ground, so what you're suggesting is, we toss her into combat?" Plutarch asks uncertainly.

"I can't sanction putting an untrained civilian into battle just for effect," Coin instantly jumps on this.

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting, put her in the field," Haymitch points to me.

"No, we can't protect her," Coin insists.

"It has to come from her," Haymitch moves his hands towards me. "You want a symbol for the revolution? She cannot be coached into it, trust me, I know."

"Maybe there's someplace that's less dangerous?" Boggs steps in.

"District Eight," Beetee confirms. "They reported heavy bombing last week, with no military targets left."

"We can't garuntee her safety," Coin is still against it.

"You'll never be able to garuntee my safety," I say, speaking for the first time since this little group pooled together. "I wanna go."

"And if you're killed?" Coin raises her eyebrows.

I shrug. "You'd better damn well hope you get it on camera."

☘︎☘︎☘︎

Beetee takes Gale, Katniss and I down to special defence, I insisting he had surprises for us. Rory wasn't going to Eight, but he had begged our mother to let him come down, because he had wanted to see all that went on.

When we got down there, Beetee (who's still in a wheelchair) shows us around, before giving us our long awaited
surprises.

He gives Gale a crossbow. "D'you wanna try it out?" He asks. "If you're gonna be a part of Willow's propo team, you're gonna have to look the part."

Gale takes it and goes to the shooting range, blowing the target up as soon as he fires.

"And for you, Katniss, I have this," Beetee showed Katniss a bow with extra streamlined and fast arrows. She looked at it in glee.

Beetee turned to me. "And for you, Willow, Plutarch wanted you to have a weapon for the sake of the propos, but I couldn't just make you a fashion accessory, could I?"

He shows me axes with red, yellow and white on their handles. "What do they mean?"

Beetee points to them in turn. "Regular," the white, "incendiary," the yellow, "and explosive axes," the red. "They're all colour coded. Oh, and tell Finnick that I have a trident for him, that should cheer him up."

I take a red axe from its place, raising it above my head before Beetee stops me. "Let's not throw the red ones in here."

Or it'll explode the whole place, I finish on my own.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

With my new axes and my old ones combined in my pockets, I head towards the hovercraft with Katniss, who is walking with me.

Boggs leads us through Thirteen's nuclear weapon development. The room is about a couple hundred metres squared, filled with bombs of all shapes and sizes.

"You had all of this and you just left the districts defenceless against the Capitol?" I ask, somewhat annoyed.

"It's not that simple, Willow," Boggs says. Katniss stays silent. "We barely survived, we weren't in any shape to launch a counterattack. Yes we could've bombed the Capitol but they would've retaliated with twice the firepower. Then what? There would've been nobody left to claim victory."

I absorb this before replying coldly. "Sounds like exactly what Austin said when you all called him a traitor."

Boggs doesn't react, and just points us in the direction of our hovercraft. "This way, soldier."

When we went in that direction, we saw Gale with Effie by his side. She's 'prepping' him. Katniss joins him at his side whilst I look my brother up and down, eventually rolling my eyes at him.

When we get on board the hovercraft, Effie shouts. "Come back safe!"

I really don't know if we will.

"Quick introductions, Willow," Plutarch is on the hovercraft when we board it, with four people I've never met before. He points to the only girl, who has half of her head shaved and a piercing in her ear. "This is Cressida, in my opinion one of the best up and coming directors in the Capitol."

"Until I up and left," she says with a straight face. Then, surprisingly, she smiled at me. "Hey."

"Let's see what you can do," Plutarch leaves Cressida to it to introduce me to the other three.

"This is my assistant, Messala," she says, pointing to a boy with buzz cutted hair.

"It's an honour to meet you," he says in a low voice. I simply nod back.

"And your camera men over there are Castor-" Cressida says.

"Hello," he nods to me.

"-And Pollux."

The second one of the brothers that I assume they must be stays silent, just nodding. I wonder what the problem is.

"Let's get locked in," Boggs orders, and we all sit in the respective seats of the hovercraft.

I'm next to Pollux and Katniss, so I turn to the one that hasn't spoken yet and I ask. "You're all from the Capitol? Plutarch got you out?"

"Don't expect much chit chat from him, he's an avox," Cressida says, answering my questions.

Avoxes are servants to the Capitol. I've seen a few on my two Games trips. But the horror behind this is worse than you could imagine. To stop these people from talking, the Capitol cuts their tongues out.

So that's why Pollux can't talk to me.

"...Capitol cut his tongue out years ago," Cressida finishes. Then she answers my other question. "And no, it wasn't any sort of rescue, if that's what you mean. We all fled on our own. For this-"

The hovercraft rises off the floor just then, causing commotion which means Cressida can't finish her sentence like she does moments later.

"-For you."