"But if it's not, then neither is what the districts are doing. 'Basira' here—I don't know what kind of bizarre loyalty test this was supposed to be, but she asked why we're not fighting back, right, and it makes sense to me, same as it does to every single of you, but maybe- maybe it shouldn't! Maybe the chance that I don't die if I go back and that I get to see my friends and family again is worth the risk of going out there! The only thing I have to lose is spending the rest of my life in an empty bar!" They really should have shut her up by now. She wishes they would shut her up.

(The thing about magic is you can't prove it. If a mundane doesn't believe you can do something—and none of them really do—
—technically you can force it, with enough power. She really, really can't do that.)

"And the only thing you have to lose is lives full of fear and hunger and exhaustion, of begging for mercy and barely getting to think, and yes they can make it worse, I don't have a single fucking doubt you bastards can," her eyes are just a little mad as she addresses a different part of the ceiling, "but at some point we will all either be dead or- or-" Please. "Or free, somehow, maybe, I- I can't-" This is not my job, Blueay, Robin, Hummingbird, darling, how do you do it, this hope thing, I can't. "Maybe not, but maybe yes, and I feel like we have never asked ourselves whether it would be worth it."

it wasn't no.

She climbs onto a table and is basically yelling now, at the audience whose likelihood of existing fades with every word, at the producers, and absent that at whatever gods may be because how do you run a magic bar and don't do something. Because she's right, she's still right and Birdsong is still wrong. The only difference is that she doesn't want them to be.

"Many worlds, right? Well, there must be one where a fourteen year old who thinks people are good and worthy of trust and capable of helping each other is not fatally wrong. It's not ours, oh hell no, we're a looooong and bloody way from that," she starts laughing, unsure if it's the alcohol, or the irony of her being the Earthwater giving a speech like this, or the fact she's still alive and that means she's just talking to a ceiling. It takes her way too long to stop, but she doesn't care. When she finally manages to stop, she's still smiling, a feral, hungry grin that would be showing way too much teeth if it wasn't for the occasion.

There are shelves behind the bar; mostly empty, with a mirrored backsplash. Zeph will be able to see herself in it.

Oh, she does.

"So let's start walking."

For a moment Basira actually expects something to happen.

The lights to turn on, someone to come from around a corner. Anything.

Silence hangs in the bar.

"Yeah, I can tell you're part of the problem," she murmurs.

Zeph starts laughing again and it's not mad anymore, there's joy to it. She jumps off the table with the ease of a kid running through a forest for fun, not the purposefulness of a soldier ambushing an enemy passing below.

"No, no, don't you get it?"

"No?" she says, but Zeph hardly seems to listen.

"They, the Capitol, would never let someone," her voice wavers just for a second, "spurt this kind of nonsense on TV. And they wouldn't just turn my feed off either, they would make an example of me right there and then. If I was on TV. If they could still see me."

"Sorry, I didn't record it either."

"Oh, if you did I would have to detroy it, wouldn't want evidence of me going all," she gesticulates with pathos, "like that," Zeph jokes. It only rings half-true.

"But. Fuck!" She flops into a chair and laughs. "Magic! It's magic! I'm in a magic bar!"

"How did you think they were doing the drinks?"

Zeph rolls her eyes, but her response sounds lighthearted.

"I don't know. The games are fucking expensive, I wouldn't put it past them to find a way." She shrugs. "I'm not going to let my entire perception of reality crumble over a milkshake, not, like, in public."

Basira goes and joins her on the comfy chairs, why not—Basira scoops up the pile of napkins and brings them in case she needs reading material.

"Not even if it was a really delicious milkshake?"

"It takes a solid meal to buy me," Zeph grins. "Also you have dodged my requests for a demonstration of your magic. It definitely seemed like they figured out exactly one trick to sell the magic thing with."

"I really don't want to waste energy on things that aren't 'staying alive'!" She struggles for words for a second— "Do you want to see me make a little light in my hand, that's cheap and, y'know, definitely not something anyone could easily fake, ever, at all."

"I'm not saying your cover story isn't doesn't make sense, just that it's very convenient." Zeph points out. Then, in a serious tone, she adds: "And it's your call. Sounds great, but I'm not gonna make you make yourself more likely to die for my entertainment."

" - Thanks." She forces a smile, because that's a good thing, so she should be happy about it.

Zeph shrugs sympathetically at the forced smile and leans back in the chair, stretching.

"I guess I still have to, uh, decide if any of that bullshit I said in my little performance holds up. Like, about staying here." She reaches for the napkins to review what they know again.