13th Game [video]

[stillplaying]

[There's a bashful look on her face when she opens the journal. It's been a whole day now, a whole day since she returned from her kidnapping. Since she had discovered Prim had arrived in her absence, since she had gotten to once again spend the whole day and night in the company of her sister. It had been amazing. A dream that she had never thought possible. Prim was dead and yet... yet, for whatever reason, she had been brought here.

Perhaps she should have alerted those outside of her household that she had returned. But all she had wanted for that one day was to spend it alongside Prim. To tell her everything that had happened in the months - year - following her death. To tell her about Commander Paylor and the new government of Panem. To tell her of all those she had met here, of Peeta and Richard, Teddy and Sokka and Zevran and Rapunzel. It had been the wee hours of the night by the time she had gone to bed.

But sometime in the mid-morning, she remembers promises she had made. To the man who had helped her in learning how to get her voice back. To the boy who was now suffering from a death penalty of his own. She had promised them both a song. And it seems now like such a small price to pay to gaining not one, but two, important parts of her life back.

She ducks her head for a second, fingers playing with the buttons and beads on the handmade necklace Sokka made her. And then she clears her throat and begins to sing with a voice that, as Peeta once claimed, would silence the birds:]


As I look at the valleys down below
They are green just as far as I can see
As my memories return, oh how my heart did yearn
For you and the days that used to be
High on a mountain top, standing all alone
Wondering where the years of my life have flown
High on a mountaintop, wind blowing free
Thinking about the days that used to be

Well, I wonder if you ever think of me
Or has time erased your memory
As I listen to the breeze whisper gently through the trees
I wonder if you ever think of me

High on a mountain top, standing all alone
Wondering where the years of my life have flown
High on a mountaintop, wind blowing free
Thinking about the days that used to be
High on a mountain top, standing all alone
Wondering where the years of my life have flown
High on a mountaintop, wind blowing free
Thinking about the days that used to be

High on a mountain top
Thinking about the days that used to be
And I wonder if you ever think of me

[When she's done singing, she smiles sheepishly and shrugs.] I promised a song to a few people. I hope you enjoyed it.

[She opens her mouth a second later to say something more. And then she pauses and, for once, actually takes the time to construct a filter. To make certain that Prim cannot see what follows. Because even though Katniss' own birthday is only a few days away, she's not thinking of that day very much. It pales in comparison to a much more important day approaching at the end of the month.]

Does anyone have much experience throwing birthday parties? My sister - Prim - she's here now. And her birthday's in a few weeks. We could never afford a proper celebration growing up. I'd like to give her that. Give her everything that she couldn't have back home. [She frowns for a moment, brow wrinkling in thought.] I also need to build an addition to my house. Where'd I go about getting the material for that?


[ooc: for those interested in what the song might sound like. though this isn't exactly how i picture katniss' voice. nor does she have musical accompaniment in this post.]

Comments

[stillplaying]

[He was probably right about that. There were no Hunger Games here. People genuinely seemed to care for one another for reasons far from selfish motives. It was so unlike the world she knew in so many ways. Sometimes, she was almost a little grateful for that.]

It also doesn't exist in Panem. Men and women fought side by side in the uprising.

[greenjacketed]

Uprisings are like that, love. It's all feelings an' righteousness. People have their causes and they fight better for it. It's different when you're an army fighting to reclaim someone else's soil. [ ... ] Let's put it this way: not a battle of this war has been fought in England. You look at the Spanish partisans -- Teresa's forces, eh? And they're made up of all sorts. But the British soldiers are only there to collect their pay and their rum rations and to avoid the jailer.

[stillplaying]

[The more he spoke of these British soldiers, the less Katniss found herself liking them. Richard, she quickly decided, must be an exception rather than the rule. Because she actually liked him. And from the sounds of it, she doubted that she'd actually like any of his men.

Nor, for that matter, did she understand the reasons behind why they'd even risk their lives to begin with.]

They'd die for rum? They'd actually chose to die? Are they insane or just desperate?

[greenjacketed]

Desperate. Aye. Few of us enlisted on account of wanting to, lass.

[stillplaying]

[Desperate. The world sounded a little familiar to her. Desperate like the families whose children had to submit their names into the reaping multiple times in order to get enough tesserae. She could understand that kind of desperate.

Those that enlisted to escape a jail cell? That she can understand. But those who did so for the money? For drink?]

Why not a safer job?

[greenjacketed]

Safety's a relative term, ain't it? [ he brushed his palms gently over the newly naked bird. ] Pat puts it best, lass -- [ he casually refers to his sergeant by his shortened name, comfortable doing so around katniss. ] He comes from a place where it's difficult enough to scratch two pennies together, let alone find someone who'll give you food for'em. His people are kept firm under Britain's boot. And he hates it. Hates the crown like you wouldn't believe. So I asked him why he gave up his freedom and enlisted in the King's army.

Know what he said to me? He said, calm as can be, that freedom to starve is no freedom at all. It's hard work. It's dangerous work. But some figure it's better to die fast before the cannon with a fighting chance than to waste away slowly from something else. So there are two reasons: the jail and the hunger. Talk to the lads in any outfit and you're bound to find a dozen more.

[stillplaying]

[It was a sobering speech. She stopped cutting as she listened to Richard talk, her head bowed. In District 12, growing old was a badge of honor. Having those wrinkles, those spots, limps, and scars. It meant you survived the worst Panem could throw at you. Even poor and starving, she couldn't imagine not striving for anything less.

Let alone signing up for the Peacekeepers. Fighting for Snow and the Capitol.

But rather than saying so, she bit her tongue. Because, while they certainly starved on those Hollow Days, they had no freedom even for that. Not with the tesserae and Hunger Games and punishments looming over their heads. Avox, muttations, worse.

She didn't know much about Britain. Not much more than what Richard had told her. But in her opinion, Panem still seemed worse.]

[greenjacketed]

[ his voice his quiet as he continues, still unable to look at her while he speaks: ] Soldiering is what I'm good at. I ain't saying I'm proud of the fact that I had a choice and I chose the army over a hanging, Katniss. But for the first time...? I was good at something. Something others were willing to pay me for doing.

[stillplaying]

[He was good at killing. Just like her. Because, singing aside, that was all she was good at, too. Hunting, murdering. It all revolved around death, didn't it? But in either case, she had never been paid. It had only, always, been about survival.

Still, that didn't seem like a good enough excuse for all the crimes she had committed.]

At least it's something that keeps you alive.

[greenjacketed]

Aye. My death was as good as certain, before I enlisted. Now it's only a likely possibility. I've been lucky, so far.

[stillplaying]

[She shook her head. If the odds had anything to do with it, she wouldn't be alive today. It had come down to skill. To her determination to remain alive, to save those she loved. The odds - luck - had never been in her favor.]

You're good at what you do.

[greenjacketed]

....Heaven help me come peace-time, love.

[ because what would he do then? here doesn't count. here, where he laughed and drank and caroused and only fought one week out of every few months. ]

[stillplaying]

[She understood. It was one of her biggest fears. Fear that she might never adjust to life in peacetime. The uprising might have only lasted months, but she had grown used to that life. More than that, the scars on the inside might prevent her from ever living a normal life.]

Me too.

[greenjacketed]

Nah, darling. You'll be orright. [ perfect? nah. entirely happy? likely not. but he wants to believe that she would be okay. ] You're young yet. Things'll look up again.

[stillplaying]

[She wished she could share his optimism. Briefly, when Peeta had been here, she had thought it could be possible. She had been reminded of the daffodil in the spring, that silver lining she so desperately needed in her life. But then he had been sent home. And she had been stuck left behind here in Luceti.

But Prim was here now, she reminded herself. And she wasn't alone. Life was starting to look up. If only it could stay this way.]

Maybe.

[greenjacketed]

Yer habits are just forming, ain't they? You can be whatever the bloody hell you'd like, here. And we can forget about home a moment longer, if we must. Practice at peace. Figure it out. Work it out for ourselves.

[stillplaying]

[She shrugged. Maybe. Maybe if she was any other girl. A girl who hadn't had to assume all family responsibilities at age eleven. Any habits she had, she presumed, had already formed years ago.]

It's not peaceful here.

[greenjacketed]

...It's a bloody great deal more peaceful than what I know, lass. Maybe it ain't peaceful outside this barrier, but I'm met with more peace than I know how to handle inside of it.