stillplaying | 16th Game [video]

[She's spent the last week hiding. Skipped guitar lessons with Teddy and archery lessons with Henry, barely showed her face in public. Most of her time was spent in the far reaches of the woods away from any areas she knew Sokka might hunt. When she could bother going on her forays. But in the past week, they hadn't felt quite the same. She hadn't been able to lose herself in the hunt as she normally did. Not when there was a fear in her belly that she might see him.

At least Gale had been smart. He'd put that space between them by moving to District 4. This town was too small. It lacked that space she had had in Panem. And because they had been so damn open about their relationship at Prim's party... People knew. So many people knew.

If there was one thing that Katniss couldn't stand, it was humiliation. She didn't want to see their pitying looks. Hear their echoed apologies. She had already had to go through that once. When she had lost Peeta, when her heart had truly broken. This? This didn't hurt as much. No, it was the mortification and the self-disgust that really bothered her now. At least she hadn't been so stupid as letting herself fall in love. But if it had gone on longer? If he hadn't had his death penalty removed, would she have?

Better to have them all hate her, despise her, than pity her. At least that she knew how to deal with, felt as if she could accept. Because they'd be right not to like her. All of them would be right. This likable girl her friends thought she was? That was a lie, only a part of whatever charisma it was she held over others. And today? Today seemed like the perfect day to do just that.

Effie's last post remained fresh in her mind as she turned on the video recorder in the journal. Her hair was neatly braided in its custom side braid. The mockingjay pin pinned high on the chest of one of her nicer blouses, displayed where everyone could see it. She stared resolutely at the camera for a minute before she nodded.]

Today, back in my home of Panem, would have been the first time in seventy-six years that a reaping of contestants for the annual Hunger Games would not have occurred. As many of you know by now, every year, on this day, the names of two children from each district - a boy and a girl between the years of twelve to eighteen years of age - would be selected to fight to the death in an arena days later. The Hunger Games served as entertainment to those who lived in the Capitol. People like Effie Trinket who didn't know better. An honor to those in the richer Districts, the ones favored by the Capitol. For the rest of us, it was a punishment, a reminder of the cost that came with rising up against our government.

[She took a deep breath, lips pursed together for a quick second as she remembered. She spoke without thinking. Determined, she only realized later, to take the heat off of Effie for her suggestion of games here in Luceti. Her mockingjay wings twitched behind her. But once she started speaking again, the words tumbled out. She held her gaze steady, grey eyes showing all the emotion her stoic expression hid.]

Many of you were angry when Effie suggested the idea of gladiatorial-like games here in our prison. But Effie was only acting like everyone else here, trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. Looking for something that would make her feel more at home. Just like the rest of us. You have no right, no right at all, to judge her for that. You don't know our world. You don't know what it could be like.

The 75th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, were the last official games held by President Snow and the Gamemakers. But they weren't the last Hunger Games. Because after the second uprising ended, after we won, the surviving victors of previous Games met. There were only seven of us left. Me and Peeta. Our mentor, Haymitch. Johanna, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie. We were given a choice by President Coin - the new leader of Panem, the leader I executed in revenge for my sister's death. One last Hunger Games, this one played by twenty four children directly related to those who held the most power in Panem.

I think the way the vote fell was obvious. Peeta and Beetee and Annie voted no. The better of us. Johanna and Enobaria voted yes. And Haymitch and I? We had the last votes. But he's as unlikable, as bitter as I am. I suspected how he'd vote. And I voted to kill those Capitol children anyway.

I am not a good person. Maybe... maybe I thought I could change. Maybe I thought I could put all this behind me. The Captiol, the Hunger Games, Peeta... But girls like me don't deserve to be happy. They don't deserved to be liked. Or loved.

So do yourselves all a favor and think before you make a judgement about someone. Because as wrong as you are about Effie? You're just as wrong about me.

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[ This...is a lot to hear and take in. It's not the first time Rapunzel has heard about the Hunger Games, and maybe it was just the day that was bringing this out in Katniss, but she can't help but wonder if there's something that she missed. It had been awhile since they talked...what could have happened? Prim didn't go home, did she?

And then it clicks. The leader I executed in revenge for my sister's death. Oh. Oh no. ]

Everyone deserves to be happy, Katniss. Even people who have to make hard decisions.

[She couldn't imagine Prim leaving. Even if she kept reminding herself it was inevitable, that she needed to enjoy the time she had now with Prim because it just wouldn't last, she couldn't bring herself to fully picture that day in her head. Today was hard enough as it was, remembering every Reaping Day past. Knowing that, perhaps if she had voted differently, last year could have been the day the marking no more lotteries. No more tessara and no more unnecessary deaths.

But she hadn't voted that way.

All the more reason for people to dislike her. To treat her like Sokka had when he had lost his soul. At least, that was how she rationalized it. Rationalized pushing people away so she wouldn't get hurt ever again.

She eyed Rapunzel with some frustration. This wasn't the response she wanted to hear.]

It wasn't a hard decision to make.

[The Capitol had needed to suffer the way the Districts had. And it would have cause the least amount of bloodshed, the least death in the end.]

[ She winces slightly at that response, but she remains determined. Katniss was her friend, and Rapunzel would make that clear no matter what it took. ]

But it was a hard situation that you didn't ask to be in. [ The Hunger Games, District 12, losing her sister - all of it. ]

[Good. That wince was exactly the sort of response she wanted. Clear dislike of her choices, hopefully leading to a greater dislike of her. An end to their friendship. Just like she was aiming for.

But then, Rapunzel's words contradicted everything in that look. Katniss took a deep breath. Why didn't she get it? Rapunzel was a good person, someone like Peeta. Not at all someone like her.]

So?

I'm not saying it give you an excuse. I'm just saying you can't blame yourself. Not entirely. Everyone does things they're not proud of.

[Maybe. But not everyone had done things like she had. Fought and killed. Tried to get over the boy she loved by letting her affections be brought. And then still developing some sort of feelings for the boy regardless of not wanting to feel anything at all. Letting him continue to lie to her just so she could remain happy.

She had done too much lately she wasn't proud of. Too much. And that was exactly why these people needed to stay away from her.]

They were my decisions. I'm the one to blame.

But our mistakes don't make us who we are, Katniss.

[ And she firmly believed it. She knew there were people close to her who had done terrible things, but she didn't ask - not because she wanted to be ignorant, but because she wouldn't let people's past mistakes change how she saw them. What mattered was who they really were now. ]

Yes they do.

[Actions, mistakes. Every single choice ever made be it good or bad. They all added up to who she was now. And who she had been then, too. Rapunzel was wrong. So very wrong.]

They're actions gone wrong. That's all. I'm not the person you thought I was, Rapunzel.

That isn't true. It doesn't matter who you were back home. Not to me. What matters is who you've been here.

[ If she didn't believe that, no one would get a second chance. But that's what people needed. A chance to start over. ]

[It sounded so easy. And for a moment, she could easily imagine what it would be like to go on being the girl she was here. The girl no one knew anything about. She hadn't been a Victor or a figurehead to these people here. She'd just been Katniss.

She had been stupid to think that it might actually work.]

That person hasn't been me.

But that is you. Don't you see? Your background doesn't matter to me. Why are you trying to push away the people that care about you?

[ It scares her. It really does. Because she did that herself not so long ago, and she'd never been so sad in her entire life. ]

[No one yet had stopped to really ask her that question. A question she had an answer to, even if she really didn't want to admit it aloud. Pushing people away meant keeping herself safe. Meant keeping herself from losing friends - family as some had become - to their home worlds. Meant keeping her heart from being broken all over again.

And more than that? If she ever got involved in any sort of uprising ever again? Pushing people away meant keeping them safe.]

...it's easier.

I can't believe you really mean that. What about Prim?

[ Would she push her away because it was easier, too? ]

Prim would be safer if she didn't have me in her life.

[Those words she could speak without hesitation. Because she knew without a doubt that they were true. That if it weren't for her, Prim might still be alive. Even if, were it not for her, Prim might have found her way into the arena three years ago. That didn't matter. All that mattered was that Prim had died because Katniss was a threat to President Coin.

Quietly,]

She might still be alive.

Y-you can know that. Please, Katniss...you can't do this to yourself.

[ And more than what Rapunzel wanted for her, she was certain Prim wouldn't want this for her sister, either. ]

[No, Prim wouldn't want this either. She hadn't thought that bit through. Hadn't thought to filter the message away from Prim, to make certain her sister never found out about any of this. And she dreaded seeing her sister's reaction.

Seeing Rapunzel's already made her feel worse than she did before.

But the other girl hadn't been there. Hadn't seen Prim die a human torch.]

If it hadn't been for me, Coin would never have signed off on the papers letting Prim into the battlefield. She never would have died there, one of the medics Coin sacrificed to end the war. She did that on purpose, Rapunzel. She did that to try to control me.

16th Game [video]

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