District 11, Panem [Wednesday, Fandom Time]
It was only natural that the district Katniss wanted to visit the very least was their first stop. The day before had been spent in prep on the train, since only her hands and face had been made over before.
But in District 11, it was warm enough for far more than that to show.
The day before had been one of Katniss's worst. She'd yelled at Effie and Haymitch both, having to apologize to Effie later (Haymitch was used enough to it). Peeta had shown her his talent, and it had stuck with her uncomfortably. While Katniss faked being able to design clothing, Peeta's talent was real -- he painted. And while Katniss had expected something sweet and colorful, like Peeta himself, what she'd found herself confronted with, instead, was a dead-on depiction of the Games.
Some wouldn't be recognizable to anyone who hadn't been in the arena themselves. Water dripping through the cracks in their cave. The dry pond bed. A pair of hands, his own, digging for roots. Others any viewer would recognize. The golden horn called the Cornucopia. Clove arranging the knives inside her jacket. One of the mutts, unmistakably the blond, green-eyed one meant to be Glimmer, snarling. And Katniss. She was everywhere. High up in a tree. Beating a shirt against the stones in the stream. Lying unconscious in a pool of blood. And one she couldn't place - perhaps this was how she looked when his fever was high-emerging from a silver gray mist that matched her eyes exactly.
She hadn't been able to get the paintings out of her mind, because the images were so similar to the ones that raced through her head every time she closed her own eyes. But now, finally, the train was slowing, and they were graced with a distraction.
She thought it might be another fuel stop, until a fence rose up towards them. Towering at least thirty-five feet in the air and topped with barbed wire, it made the one back in District 12 look downright childish. Her eyes quickly inspected the base, which was lined with enormous metal plates. There would be no burrowing under those, no escaping to hunt. Then she saw the watchtowers, placed evenly apart, manned with armed guards.
Rue had given her the impression that things were stricter, harsher in her district. But Katniss had not expected this.
Crops began, stretching out as far as the eye could see. Men, women, and children wearing straw hats to keep off the sun straightened up, taking a moment to stretch their backs as they watched the train go by. There were orchards in the distance, and Katniss wondered if that's where Rue would have worked, collecting the fruit from the slimmest branches at the tops of the trees. On and on it went. Katniss couldn't believe the sheer size of District 11.
"How many people do you think live here?" Peeta asked softly. She shook her head. In school they refer to it as a large district, that's all. No actual figures on the population. It was making her tired, watching all of it. When Effie came to tell them to get dressed, Katniss didn't object.
Eventually, they were escorted from the train by armed Peacekeepers and taken to the crumbling, sloped-roofed Justice Building. Once inside, Katniss could smell an excellent meal being prepared, but it didn't block out the odors of mildew and rot. As they made a beeline for the front entrance, Katniss could hear the anthem beginning outside in the square. Someone clipped a microphone on her. Peeta took her left hand. The mayor was introducing them as the massive doors opened with a groan.
The ceremony was to be a scripted one: the mayor of 11 would read a speech in their honor, and they would respond with a scripted thank-you provided by the Capitol. If a victor had any special allies among the dead tributes, it was considered good form to add a few personal comments as well. Katniss had tried, several times, to write something about Rue and Thresh, but she found herself getting emotional at each attempt. Fortunately, Peeta had worked something out, and it would count for both of them, she hoped. At the end of the ceremony, they would be presented with some sort of plaque, and then withdraw to the Justice Building, where a special dinner would be served.
That was the plan, anyway.
When they walked, a special platform had been raised, with the families of the two dead tributes on it. Katniss spotted an old woman and a tall, muscular girl on Thresh's side. Rue's family, though, was a sight she hadn't been prepared for. Her parents, whose faces weren't as masked as Katniss's own, and showed their grief. Her five tiny siblings, all looking just like Rue.
The mayor gave his speech. Peeta gave his remarks, and Katniss made herself finish them -- fortunately, it had been so drilled into her that she could do them in her sleep, at this point. Peeta didn't draw his card out to read his personal remarks, though. Instead, he spoke in his easy, winning style, about Thresh and Rue making it to the final eight, about how they both kept Katniss alive-thereby keeping him alive-and about how this is a debt they could never repay. And then he hesitated before adding something that wasn't written on the card. Maybe because he thought Effie might make him remove it.
"It can in no way replace your losses, but as a token of our thanks we'd like for each of the tributes' families from District Eleven to receive one month of our winnings every year for the duration of our lives."
The crowd couldn't help but respond with gasps and murmurs. There was no precedent for what Peeta did. It probably wasn't even legal. As for the families, they just stared in shock. Their lives were changed forever when Thresh and Rue were lost, but this gift would change them again. A month of tribute winnings could easily provide for a family for a year. As long as Katniss and Peeta lived, these families would not hunger.
Katniss looked up at Peeta and he gave her a sad smile. She could hear Haymitch's voice from nights ago. "You could do a lot worse." At this moment, it was impossible to imagine how she could do any better. The gift was perfect. So when she rose up on tiptoe to kiss him, it didn't seem forced at all.
It was when she pulled away that she saw Rue's sister, glaring. And at first, it puzzled her, until she realized why. Katniss still had not thanked her.
If Rue had won, she wouldn't stand here, mute, letting Katniss's death go unacknowledged.
"Wait!" Katniss stumbled forward, nearly tripping over the plaque she'd been given. Her allotted time for speaking had come and gone, but she owed too much to not say something. Her winnings wouldn't cover her silence.
"I want to give my thanks to the tributes of District Eleven," she said, looking over to the women on Thresh's side. "I only ever spoke to Thresh one time. Just long enough for him to spare my life. I didn't know him, but I always respected him. For his power. For his refusal to play the Games on anyone's terms but his own. The Careers wanted him to team up with them from the beginning, but he wouldn't do it. I respected him for that."
And for the first time, the old woman raised her head, a trace of a smile on her lips.
The crowd was silent now, waiting.
She turned to Rue's family. "But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she'll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim." Her voice was undependable, but she was nearly finished. "Thank you for your children." She raised her chin to address the crowd. "And thank you all for the bread."
She stood there, feeling broken and small, with thousands of eyes trained on her. There was a long pause. Then, from somewhere in the crowd, someone whistled Rue's four-note mocking-jay tune. The one that signaled the end of the workday in the orchards. The one that meant safety in the arena. By the end of the tune, Katniss had found the whistler, a wizened old man in a faded red shirt and overalls. His eyes met hers.
What happened next was not an accident. It was too well executed to be spontaneous, because it happened in complete unison. Every person in the crowd pressed the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extended them to Katniss. It was their sign from District 12, the last goodbye she gave Rue in the arena.
Had she not spoken to President Snow, this act might have moved her to tears. Instead, she was filled with dread. This was dissent. This was revolution, in its smallest form. This was a very public tribute to the girl who had defied the Capitol.
She wanted to defuse it, to stop them, but a small burst of static told her her microphone had been cut off, and the mayor took over. As they were led off the stage, Katniss felt funny, and had to stop a moment in the wings. She spied Peeta's flowers, and realized she'd forgotten her own on the stage.
They would have been in the Justice Building if she hadn't forgot. Instead, they saw the whole thing. A pair of Peacekeepers dragged the old man who whistled to the top of the steps. The forced him to his knees before the crowd. And then they put a bullet through his head.
Katniss barely registered her shock before they were ushered away, their view blocked by Peacekeepers in white. They made excuses to Effie -- a truck's backfire -- and Katniss felt Peeta's arm encircle her.
Two more shots. Katniss's mind went blank. Rue's little sisters? Thresh's grandmother, perhaps?
"Both of you. With me," Haymitch said. Peeta and Katniss followed, with the Peacekeepers around the Justice Building taking little interest in their movements now that they were inside. They ascended a staircase, dipping and turning around corners, until Katniss was sure they were lost. She wasn't sure how he knew they were going, until Katniss realized Haymitch had been here before, just twenty-five years ago. Finally, they were in the dome of the building, a place filled with broken furniture, and Haymitch turned on them. "What happened?"
Peeta explained while Katniss stared at the ground, ending with, "What's happening, Haymitch."
And Haymitch looked to Katniss. "It will be better coming from you."
She disagreed. It would be a hundred times worse coming from her. But she looked up, and told Peeta everything, as calmly as she could. About President Snow's visit to her home, before Fandom. About the unrest in the districts. She didn't even omit Wesley, and the kiss they'd shared. She explained how they were all in jeopardy, because of her trick with the berries.
"I was supposed to fix things on this tour. Make everyone who had doubted believe I acted out of love. Calm things down. But obviously, all I've done today is. get three people killed, and now everyone in the square will be punished." She felt so sick she sat down on a couch, despite the exposed stuffing.
"Then I made things worse, too. By giving the money," said Peeta. Suddenly he struck out at a lamp that sat precariously on a crate and knoced it across the room, shattering it against the floor. "This has to stop. Right now. This - this-game you two play, where you tell each other secrets but keep them from me like I'm too inconsequential or stupid or weak to handle them."
"It's not like that, Peeta," Katniss started.
"It's exactly like that!” he yelled. "I have people I care about, too, Katniss! Family and friends back in District Twelve who will be just as dead as yours if we don't pull this thing off. So, after all we went through in the arena, don't I even rate the truth from you?"
"You're always so reliably good, Peeta," said Haymitch. "So smart about how you present yourself before the cameras. I didn't want to disrupt that."
"Well, you overestimated me. Because I really screwed up today. What do you think is going to happen to Rue's and Thresh's families? Do you think they'll get their share of our winnings? Do you think I gave them a bright future? Because I think they'll be lucky if they survive the day!” Peeta sent something else flying, a statue. Katniss had never seen him like this.
"He's right, Haymitch," she said. "We were wrong not to tell him. Even back in the Capitol."
"Even in the arena, you two had some sort of system worked out, didn't you?" asked Peeta. His voice was quieter now. "Something I wasn't part of."
"No. Not officially. I just could tell what Haymitch wanted me to do by what he sent, or didn't send," she said.
"Well, I never had that opportunity. Because he never sent me anything until you showed up," said Peeta.
"Look, boy-" Haymitch began.
"Don't bother, Haymitch. I know you had to choose one of us. And I'd have wanted it to be her. But this is something different. People are dead out there. More will follow unless we're very good. We all know I'm better than Katniss in front of the cameras. No one needs to coach me on what to say. But I have to know what I'm walking into," said Peeta.
"From now on, you'll be fully informed," Haymitch promised.
"I better be," said Peeta. He didn't even bother to look at Katniss before he left.
"Did you choose me, Haymitch?" she asked, after Peeta was gone.
"Yeah," he said.
“Why? You like him better," Katniss noted, softly.
"That's true. But remember, until they changed the rules, I could only hope to get one of you out of there alive," he said. "I thought since he was determined to protect you, well, between the three of us, we might be able to bring you home."
"Oh" was all she could think to say.
"You'll see, the choices you'll have to make. If we survive this," said Haymitch. "You'll learn."
The evening passed in a blur from there. Effie in a flurry to attend to the schedule. Katniss in a pale pink gown that she never would have chosen, but that Cinna had done wonders with. Peeta, as always, performing for the crowd admirably.
But in the back of her mind, Katniss wondered if any of it was going to be enough.
[OOC welcome, but NFI and NFB again! Dialogue cribbed from Chapters 4 and 5 if Catching Fire]
But in District 11, it was warm enough for far more than that to show.
The day before had been one of Katniss's worst. She'd yelled at Effie and Haymitch both, having to apologize to Effie later (Haymitch was used enough to it). Peeta had shown her his talent, and it had stuck with her uncomfortably. While Katniss faked being able to design clothing, Peeta's talent was real -- he painted. And while Katniss had expected something sweet and colorful, like Peeta himself, what she'd found herself confronted with, instead, was a dead-on depiction of the Games.
Some wouldn't be recognizable to anyone who hadn't been in the arena themselves. Water dripping through the cracks in their cave. The dry pond bed. A pair of hands, his own, digging for roots. Others any viewer would recognize. The golden horn called the Cornucopia. Clove arranging the knives inside her jacket. One of the mutts, unmistakably the blond, green-eyed one meant to be Glimmer, snarling. And Katniss. She was everywhere. High up in a tree. Beating a shirt against the stones in the stream. Lying unconscious in a pool of blood. And one she couldn't place - perhaps this was how she looked when his fever was high-emerging from a silver gray mist that matched her eyes exactly.
She hadn't been able to get the paintings out of her mind, because the images were so similar to the ones that raced through her head every time she closed her own eyes. But now, finally, the train was slowing, and they were graced with a distraction.
She thought it might be another fuel stop, until a fence rose up towards them. Towering at least thirty-five feet in the air and topped with barbed wire, it made the one back in District 12 look downright childish. Her eyes quickly inspected the base, which was lined with enormous metal plates. There would be no burrowing under those, no escaping to hunt. Then she saw the watchtowers, placed evenly apart, manned with armed guards.
Rue had given her the impression that things were stricter, harsher in her district. But Katniss had not expected this.
Crops began, stretching out as far as the eye could see. Men, women, and children wearing straw hats to keep off the sun straightened up, taking a moment to stretch their backs as they watched the train go by. There were orchards in the distance, and Katniss wondered if that's where Rue would have worked, collecting the fruit from the slimmest branches at the tops of the trees. On and on it went. Katniss couldn't believe the sheer size of District 11.
"How many people do you think live here?" Peeta asked softly. She shook her head. In school they refer to it as a large district, that's all. No actual figures on the population. It was making her tired, watching all of it. When Effie came to tell them to get dressed, Katniss didn't object.
Eventually, they were escorted from the train by armed Peacekeepers and taken to the crumbling, sloped-roofed Justice Building. Once inside, Katniss could smell an excellent meal being prepared, but it didn't block out the odors of mildew and rot. As they made a beeline for the front entrance, Katniss could hear the anthem beginning outside in the square. Someone clipped a microphone on her. Peeta took her left hand. The mayor was introducing them as the massive doors opened with a groan.
The ceremony was to be a scripted one: the mayor of 11 would read a speech in their honor, and they would respond with a scripted thank-you provided by the Capitol. If a victor had any special allies among the dead tributes, it was considered good form to add a few personal comments as well. Katniss had tried, several times, to write something about Rue and Thresh, but she found herself getting emotional at each attempt. Fortunately, Peeta had worked something out, and it would count for both of them, she hoped. At the end of the ceremony, they would be presented with some sort of plaque, and then withdraw to the Justice Building, where a special dinner would be served.
That was the plan, anyway.
When they walked, a special platform had been raised, with the families of the two dead tributes on it. Katniss spotted an old woman and a tall, muscular girl on Thresh's side. Rue's family, though, was a sight she hadn't been prepared for. Her parents, whose faces weren't as masked as Katniss's own, and showed their grief. Her five tiny siblings, all looking just like Rue.
The mayor gave his speech. Peeta gave his remarks, and Katniss made herself finish them -- fortunately, it had been so drilled into her that she could do them in her sleep, at this point. Peeta didn't draw his card out to read his personal remarks, though. Instead, he spoke in his easy, winning style, about Thresh and Rue making it to the final eight, about how they both kept Katniss alive-thereby keeping him alive-and about how this is a debt they could never repay. And then he hesitated before adding something that wasn't written on the card. Maybe because he thought Effie might make him remove it.
"It can in no way replace your losses, but as a token of our thanks we'd like for each of the tributes' families from District Eleven to receive one month of our winnings every year for the duration of our lives."
The crowd couldn't help but respond with gasps and murmurs. There was no precedent for what Peeta did. It probably wasn't even legal. As for the families, they just stared in shock. Their lives were changed forever when Thresh and Rue were lost, but this gift would change them again. A month of tribute winnings could easily provide for a family for a year. As long as Katniss and Peeta lived, these families would not hunger.
Katniss looked up at Peeta and he gave her a sad smile. She could hear Haymitch's voice from nights ago. "You could do a lot worse." At this moment, it was impossible to imagine how she could do any better. The gift was perfect. So when she rose up on tiptoe to kiss him, it didn't seem forced at all.
It was when she pulled away that she saw Rue's sister, glaring. And at first, it puzzled her, until she realized why. Katniss still had not thanked her.
If Rue had won, she wouldn't stand here, mute, letting Katniss's death go unacknowledged.
"Wait!" Katniss stumbled forward, nearly tripping over the plaque she'd been given. Her allotted time for speaking had come and gone, but she owed too much to not say something. Her winnings wouldn't cover her silence.
"I want to give my thanks to the tributes of District Eleven," she said, looking over to the women on Thresh's side. "I only ever spoke to Thresh one time. Just long enough for him to spare my life. I didn't know him, but I always respected him. For his power. For his refusal to play the Games on anyone's terms but his own. The Careers wanted him to team up with them from the beginning, but he wouldn't do it. I respected him for that."
And for the first time, the old woman raised her head, a trace of a smile on her lips.
The crowd was silent now, waiting.
She turned to Rue's family. "But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she'll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim." Her voice was undependable, but she was nearly finished. "Thank you for your children." She raised her chin to address the crowd. "And thank you all for the bread."
She stood there, feeling broken and small, with thousands of eyes trained on her. There was a long pause. Then, from somewhere in the crowd, someone whistled Rue's four-note mocking-jay tune. The one that signaled the end of the workday in the orchards. The one that meant safety in the arena. By the end of the tune, Katniss had found the whistler, a wizened old man in a faded red shirt and overalls. His eyes met hers.
What happened next was not an accident. It was too well executed to be spontaneous, because it happened in complete unison. Every person in the crowd pressed the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extended them to Katniss. It was their sign from District 12, the last goodbye she gave Rue in the arena.
Had she not spoken to President Snow, this act might have moved her to tears. Instead, she was filled with dread. This was dissent. This was revolution, in its smallest form. This was a very public tribute to the girl who had defied the Capitol.
She wanted to defuse it, to stop them, but a small burst of static told her her microphone had been cut off, and the mayor took over. As they were led off the stage, Katniss felt funny, and had to stop a moment in the wings. She spied Peeta's flowers, and realized she'd forgotten her own on the stage.
They would have been in the Justice Building if she hadn't forgot. Instead, they saw the whole thing. A pair of Peacekeepers dragged the old man who whistled to the top of the steps. The forced him to his knees before the crowd. And then they put a bullet through his head.
Katniss barely registered her shock before they were ushered away, their view blocked by Peacekeepers in white. They made excuses to Effie -- a truck's backfire -- and Katniss felt Peeta's arm encircle her.
Two more shots. Katniss's mind went blank. Rue's little sisters? Thresh's grandmother, perhaps?
"Both of you. With me," Haymitch said. Peeta and Katniss followed, with the Peacekeepers around the Justice Building taking little interest in their movements now that they were inside. They ascended a staircase, dipping and turning around corners, until Katniss was sure they were lost. She wasn't sure how he knew they were going, until Katniss realized Haymitch had been here before, just twenty-five years ago. Finally, they were in the dome of the building, a place filled with broken furniture, and Haymitch turned on them. "What happened?"
Peeta explained while Katniss stared at the ground, ending with, "What's happening, Haymitch."
And Haymitch looked to Katniss. "It will be better coming from you."
She disagreed. It would be a hundred times worse coming from her. But she looked up, and told Peeta everything, as calmly as she could. About President Snow's visit to her home, before Fandom. About the unrest in the districts. She didn't even omit Wesley, and the kiss they'd shared. She explained how they were all in jeopardy, because of her trick with the berries.
"I was supposed to fix things on this tour. Make everyone who had doubted believe I acted out of love. Calm things down. But obviously, all I've done today is. get three people killed, and now everyone in the square will be punished." She felt so sick she sat down on a couch, despite the exposed stuffing.
"Then I made things worse, too. By giving the money," said Peeta. Suddenly he struck out at a lamp that sat precariously on a crate and knoced it across the room, shattering it against the floor. "This has to stop. Right now. This - this-game you two play, where you tell each other secrets but keep them from me like I'm too inconsequential or stupid or weak to handle them."
"It's not like that, Peeta," Katniss started.
"It's exactly like that!” he yelled. "I have people I care about, too, Katniss! Family and friends back in District Twelve who will be just as dead as yours if we don't pull this thing off. So, after all we went through in the arena, don't I even rate the truth from you?"
"You're always so reliably good, Peeta," said Haymitch. "So smart about how you present yourself before the cameras. I didn't want to disrupt that."
"Well, you overestimated me. Because I really screwed up today. What do you think is going to happen to Rue's and Thresh's families? Do you think they'll get their share of our winnings? Do you think I gave them a bright future? Because I think they'll be lucky if they survive the day!” Peeta sent something else flying, a statue. Katniss had never seen him like this.
"He's right, Haymitch," she said. "We were wrong not to tell him. Even back in the Capitol."
"Even in the arena, you two had some sort of system worked out, didn't you?" asked Peeta. His voice was quieter now. "Something I wasn't part of."
"No. Not officially. I just could tell what Haymitch wanted me to do by what he sent, or didn't send," she said.
"Well, I never had that opportunity. Because he never sent me anything until you showed up," said Peeta.
"Look, boy-" Haymitch began.
"Don't bother, Haymitch. I know you had to choose one of us. And I'd have wanted it to be her. But this is something different. People are dead out there. More will follow unless we're very good. We all know I'm better than Katniss in front of the cameras. No one needs to coach me on what to say. But I have to know what I'm walking into," said Peeta.
"From now on, you'll be fully informed," Haymitch promised.
"I better be," said Peeta. He didn't even bother to look at Katniss before he left.
"Did you choose me, Haymitch?" she asked, after Peeta was gone.
"Yeah," he said.
“Why? You like him better," Katniss noted, softly.
"That's true. But remember, until they changed the rules, I could only hope to get one of you out of there alive," he said. "I thought since he was determined to protect you, well, between the three of us, we might be able to bring you home."
"Oh" was all she could think to say.
"You'll see, the choices you'll have to make. If we survive this," said Haymitch. "You'll learn."
The evening passed in a blur from there. Effie in a flurry to attend to the schedule. Katniss in a pale pink gown that she never would have chosen, but that Cinna had done wonders with. Peeta, as always, performing for the crowd admirably.
But in the back of her mind, Katniss wondered if any of it was going to be enough.
[OOC welcome, but NFI and NFB again! Dialogue cribbed from Chapters 4 and 5 if Catching Fire]