Author's Note: For those of you who follow my various Marvel/Clintasha fanfictions, I will be updating those soon. School has been crazy but with holidays around the corner I will have more time. This collection of vignettes is just a few short stories I wrote after seeing Mockingjay Part 2, and having many feelings I needed to get out. I have written several, but will only upload like one a week until I run out of them. After that, I'll update when I can, but I'm also going to focus on finishing my Marvel fics. Thank you all for who read my works, it means so much to me. I hope you enjoy these small stories.
For years it was always about strength. The strength to move past her father's death, to provide for her family. From her first sacrifice to save her sister's life, to her sister's last act of selflessness to save others innocents. It was always about the fight, it was always about the victory.
The war was won. Despite all the costs, this precious victory was achieved.
And now came the peace...
Glazed grey eyes stared at the flames of the fireplace, a fire Greasy Sae had made to keep her warm. However the flames provided no warmth, only as a reminder of the destruction.
Her house was warm, and yet she shivered constantly. Her body never stopped moving, despite her deprivation of all energy. Like a wild animal, who's been fighting savagely all it's life, and then suddenly locked into a cage and forced to become domesticated.
Her teeth cut into her chapped lips with ever tremble of her jaw, sometimes piercing the skin and drawing blood. Her jaw is clenched constantly, occasionally she bites her tongue or the side of her mouth, but she never notices this pain. Her frail hands clasp the armrests, or sometimes her own leg, nails digging into the soft material, as if she was clinging for life. Her nails become claws, sharp and jagged like that of an animal, a mutt. She would occasionally jerk, as if startled or terrified. Yet her eyes retained an empty and disconnected look. She comprehended nothing, but her body felt everything.
Greasy Sae coaxes food into her. She eats it blindly, tasting nothing but the metallic grit of blood from her cut lips and gums. Her hygiene and health had decreased, but she doesn't notice.
Day after day she sits there, eyes fixed on the flames, as if she's empty of all emotions. She wasn't in this world, she was retaining what she lost in the old one.
In war she couldn't comprehend these emotions. She couldn't feel, because she couldn't be human. She didn't have to be.
Peace, well peace requires humanity. For months she reclaimed every emotion she had let slip her grasp during war. All at once the weight of everything fell upon her, and she felt it all.
Instead of the blanket Greasy Sae would lay on her shoulders, she would feel the jacket Cinna placed on her shoulders when she prepared to step into the Tribute tube. Her first true war uniform.
The smell of Greasy Sae's cooking turned into the raw flesh like stench that came when she walked through that hospital in District 8. The hospital that was obliterated, because her arrow hit it's mark.
She didn't see the simple innocence of Greasy Sae's granddaughter's presence, instead the young girl was a reminder of the hundreds of young children in front of that mansion.
When she was forced to bath, the warm water was far from relaxing. It burned against her raw "new" skin, but that was not the sensation that made her want to go weeks without bathing. The last time she had been in water, was in the sewer tunnels beneath the Capitol. It took months for her to stop flinching when the water moved around her.
Time passed slowly, but she didn't notice. Time was nothing now, the only thing she could wrap her head around was the question: how was the clock on her fireplace's mantle different from the clock she fought within?
Thunderstorms were unbearable. If it wasn't the rain, which she could have sworn was red against her window, it was the lighting. With every flash of electricity, she felt as if she was holding a sharp wire in her hand. Really, the painful sensation was her own nails digging into her soft palm. If it wasn't the wire, the presence of storms always brought about memories of when she was separated from Peeta, only to have him return and strangle her. Yet, on rare occasions she could think of something a little more pleasant, like the black pearl he gave her that night
Sometimes she would pull that pearl out, in those moments it provided her with the comfort she needed.
Progress.
Sleep? Sleep was worse than being awake. The pain of being sleep deprived was nothing compared to reliving when only a glass tube separated her and Cinna, as he was beat to a pulp and she was raised to die in an arena, again. At least when she was awake the stationary atmosphere of her house balanced these vivid and graphic memories. Staring at a wall was rather dull, but it was better than seeing your friend die over and over again, each time more bloody and gruesome than before.
Her empty and bloodshot eyes were drawn to the fireplace. Memorized by the flickering flames, like a bug attracted to a light. Through the flames she relived the fiery explosion that took her sister's life. She felt her skin ignite and succumb to the flames. Every time she looked into the fireplace she became the girl on fire all over again.
Despite the pain the sight of the flames became, it was impossible for her tired grey eyes to look anywhere else.
Everything she had fought for, was meant to create this life. A life of peace.
And that was exactly what she was left with, the peace of remembering every kill, loss, and torture, from comfort of her own home.
This was her peace.
I hope you all enjoyed this small vignette. After watching Mockingjay I really wanted to see the film explore more of Katniss' PTSD. After watching Mockingjay I wrote three of these small stories, and out of the three this is my least favorite. But, I hope you enjoyed it anyways. The next one will be uploaded next weekend. All feedback would be very much appreciated, but thank you for all those who read this.