Basira takes a long sip of her drink; and then, after a while, another.

Zeph raises her eyebrows challengingly. Daring Basira to disagree, she thinks. Hoping Basira will disagree, Birdsong would think.

(Maybe is thinking, she reminds herself tiredly—but no, they wouldn't watch the games even if she's in them.)

"Hasn't killed her yet?"

"Yeah, and who do you think can take credit for that?"

"Herself? Her... whatever mundanes have that isn't enclaves, when they're in danger?"

It's almost heartening to see someone can survive this long while being that oblivious.

"Yours truly. Who, unlike her, was willing to be part of the problem when I had to."

"Is she... not older than you? In what sense is she your mother?"

"...yes? I- Do you-" Zeph blinks a few times, too unsure if she's being made fun of to make fun of Basira herself. "She just... You know how you said people in your world will do anything to protect their children? She... She feels like that about everyone, I guess."

"Did she get - " the word worse sticks in her mouth " - more like that, since you were a kid?"

Zeph's shoulders curl in as she tries to shake the feeling she's walking into a trap.

"My younger siblings weren't there yet, and my dad still was, so I guess it was less tight. Maybe she got more extreme after dad, I- I don't know, I was little, I understood less."

don't worry basira also feels like she's walked into a trap

"I'm sorry."

"It's not- Listen, I know it sounds nice, I bet there's a world out there where she's a lovely person and not an id...ealist with a painstakingly slow deathwish, and I wish the us in that world all the best, but it's not this one, this one is where we needed this bread you just gave to a random person on the street, this one is where we needed our shit as much as the people who stole it from our house the other day—I- I wouldn't even have done anything to them, I didn't know who it was, I just wanted to get to be angry at them for leaving us to freeze for the rest of winter because they took our winter clothes. We were using that egg, we were using that room, we had plans for that afternoon, we were saving that money so we won't fucking starve if we miss a paycheck, can I please just for once be as important as any random person who would never help you back." She drives her elbows into the bar and buries her fingers in her head. "I don't know why she's still alive, got lucky over and over I guess, and if she's okay with that then whatever, but don't have any goddamn children."

(No one who totally hasn't been eavesdropping the whole time will hug Zeph at this time; it wouldn't have the right effect. But it is wanted.)

she said the sympathetic thing why is there more

" - I - won't."

"Your call, I have my own problems to worry about," Zeph snarks back at first, but then... doesn't quite hug herself, but the way she shrinks in on herself is the closest she got in a long time. There's a long pause. "Sorry. That sounds reasonable." She swallows. "Would you like to? If things sucked less?"

so if she wasn't going to die

"Uh... probably? I don't—I'm not really like your..." except for how apparently she is "...um, no one talks about the future at school, ever, but most adults do?"

Zeph hums, pressing her lips together.

"I hope it won't be too painful for you. Also for your own sake." She says at last with a sigh.

She doesn't really want another drink right now, but it's something to do that's not preparing to stab the next person that approaches her. She orders... a water, she supposes.

"...sorry for dropping all this on you." It's acknowledgement, mostly, there's no awkwardness to the apology. "I wouldn't know what to say either." She pauses and then, with a smile, simultaneously fond, bitter, and something else even she can't name, adds: "They are all great at it, mom and Birdsong and even Dot."

"Who're they?"

"My siblings. Birdsong's... basically mom," somehow she sounds fond, "except more so because they're 14. They believe in people, it's, I almost want to believe in people when I hear them talk about it." Her voice trembles and she pauses. "...they're wrong, of course they are, and they'll have to stop or get hurt, but..."

She's picking at the straps of leather the handles of her knives are wrapped in.

"And Dot-" she tries to start again, but then she realizes she can't think of a single thing she wants to tell this stranger about her baby sister that would be safe to say to the cameras of Capitol that are probably still surrounding them, that must be still surrounding them somehow, because anything else makes even less sense than this being a particularly quirky spin on the games this year.

...right?

One of the leather straps came off and she is now wrapping and unwrapping her hand with it. Pulling it tight till her fingertips turn red.

After another moment of silence she turns around on the stool, back against the counter, and looks out of the window, at the softly falling snow and the stars exploding in the distance.

"...Basira?"

"Yeah?"

Wrap, unwrap, wrap, unwrap.

...stop.