"Bye, Little!" Little waved good bye to her school friend Joani. For as long as she can remember she has been called Little. Sometimes she barely remembers her real name. When she was very young her mother hated the name. She discouraged everyone from calling her daughter Little. No matter how hard her mother tried to discourage it the world had made their choice.
Katniss's first born daughter was the Little Mockingjay, adored, by all who lived in Panem. Little never understood why her mother was referred to as a Mockingjay and why she was the Little Mockingjay. When she would ask her parents they always told her it was because she was so special the world wanted to give her a special name, and because she looked exactly like her mother. Grandma Everdeen always cooed at how much she looked like Katniss when she was a little girl. The only difference was she didn't have her mothers' gray eyes. Little inherited her eyes from her father, Peeta Mellark.
"One day I want to be just like you mommy" She told her mother one night as she was being tucked into bed. Her mothers' belly was swollen big with Little's baby brother safely growing inside.
"No Little, you should be more like your father. That would make mommy even more proud." She smiled down at Little as she pulled the covers up to her daughters chin, Little liked to be tucked in tightly, in her bed at night. She felt safe in her blanket cocoon, especially when she would be awoken by her mothers' screams in the night. Night time was the worst part of the day for Little. She would have to lay awake in her room scared and alone listening to her mother scream and cry while her father tried to calm her down. At an early age she learned not to try and run to her mother when she woke from a night terror. She had the scare over her right eye to remind her.
"But I want to be like you. You are a Mockingjay, and I am the Little Mockingjay." Little didn't understand what that meant until her first day of 5th grade, after the winter break. She sat down in her History class next to her friend Joani and opened her class book to the page written on the chalk board. The chapter was called 'The Great Rebellion' and there was a picture of her mother in a black suit holding a bow and arrow, aimed at a hover craft. She grew up knowing her parents fight in the war, that's where they got there scars, but she never knew about the Hunger Games. All those children killed by children. That day they only talked about how the rebellion started. It was started by two 'Star-crossed lover', her parents. Fighting for their love in the arena, surviving, gaining the sympathy of a nation, all the while unrest unsettled Districts causing them to rise up. She learned a little about District 13 before the bell rang. With tears in her eyes she ran home, without her brother, without being dismissed from school. How could her parents hide this from her? So that's why she was the Little Mockingjay. Not because she was special and loved by a nation, but because her parents were.
"Little? Why are you home? What's wrong? Where is Darren?" her mother saw her tears and rushed to her daughter who just slammed the front door closed in anger.
"Why didn't you tell me who you were?" she yelled. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked again this time without the yelling but with more tears.
"Little, I am sorry." Katniss at first was confused but when she figured out that they must have talked about the rebellion in school her heart fell.
"Your father and I just wanted to protect you and your brother." She stepped closer to Little.
"From what?" responded, Little. "you should have said something! Why hide the truth? I felt like such an idiot being the only one in class who had no idea you played such a huge roll in the Rebellion! My own parents hiding from me the truth!"
"No" Katniss knelt down in front of Little and wiped away a tear. "There is so much that even your father and I don't understand. We didn't want to expose you to a graphic past that would leave you scared like us." Katniss tried to explain.
"It explains so much now. Why we hide out here in Twelve, why we don't own a television and our phone is always unplugged. Why you seem so scared of everything outside of this house. Last week I thought Dad was going to kill me with his paring knife. He had this look in his eye when I walked in the house. He was just stoic for so long as he glared at me and…"
"Whoa, Little, why didn't you tell me about your father?" Her mother panics.
"I don't know" Little shrugs looking away. She had seen her father space out before and become real angry but not once had he ever been a direct threat to her. She called to her father till he shook his head, clearing it. She could see the panic and embarrassment in her father's eyes she thought it best not to mention it to anyone.
"Don't ever hide that from me, Little. Please." Her mother pleaded.
"Then don't hide your past from me. I want to know, so I can understand you and father." Katniss, looked away knowing she couldn't hide it anymore, Little needed to know.
"You are right, I am sorry." Katniss stood. "Come let's sit down and I will tell you whatever you want to know." Katniss guided Little to their sofa in the living room "Wait here, I will be right back." Katniss ran up the stairs, in their two story house, to her bedroom she shared with Peeta. In her closet high above their clothes in a wooden box was a book that she and Peeta started many years ago, when they were both trying to heal. She blew the dust of the top and carried it carefully to the living room. "In this box is a book that your father and I started just before the war and later finished after the war." She sat down next to Little and opened the box. "The first part is knowledge we wanted our family to have one day when we weren't around. The other parts are of the people we love and stories about them we don't want to forget." Katniss laid the book in Little's lap and began to tell her about her experience in the arena and how her father truly lost his leg. She told her about the mutts and how sometimes when she wakes up screaming it's because she sees the mutts chasing her again in her dreams. She told her daughter about how at first she didn't love her father like she does now. She told her how she ended up falling in love with Peeta before the second game. She showed Little the pearl Peeta found in an ouster, during the 75th Hunger Games. "This is why we named you Pearl." She told her how when Peeta was being held by the Capitol she would keep this with her at all times and how when Peeta gave it to her on the island it was like he was giving everything he had in the world to keep her alive. "It's like a symbol of hope to your father and I. It's what happens to you after you heal. You helped us heal." She smiled down at Little. "You weren't planned but you were exactly what your father and I needed, Darren too." Yes, it was true her mother never wanted children. She was scared if what that would bring upon her children, having the Mockingjay as a mother, but five years after the games and the war ending Peeta and Katniss were surprised with a blessing. Katniss continued to told stories about the people in her book. She cried when she talked about Rue. She laughed when she mentioned Finnick and the sugar cubes. "That's Juniors' dad." She added after her story. Little eyed the picture of Junior and Ms. Annie. Junior was just a baby in his mothers arm. "He died protecting me and your father. He was a great man. You remember Annie and Junior, right?" Little nodded her response. When Darren was born, Little was barely five years old, Annie and Junior came down for a visit. Junior didn't like to play with Little though. He didn't play the same games as little girls did. He would always run off to the woods. One day she followed him and saw he had found a pond her and mother went to with her father often in the hot summer months. He was a great swimmer, Little remembered. "Will you teach me to swim?" she popped out of the woods. "Don't you have a baby brother to bother?" he asked annoyed. "He is too little." She responded quickly. Junior smirked at her spunk. "Fine, but no more following me like a little shadow after this, ok?" He taught her basics in how to tread and how to rest when you are tired he taught her how the breast stroke and how to swim like a frog. He was ten the last time she had seen him. Their conversation on the war ended when Grandpa Haymitch walked in with Darren. "Little! I was so scared, you weren't there to walk home with us." Darren hugged his big sister. "Sorry Darren, I'm ok though." She reassured her brother.
Little laid in bed that night with her blanket pulled up to her chin, thinking about the war and all the people she saw in her mothers' book. Her heart broke for Rue's family and for all the people that had died in the war fighting alongside her mother. She cried when she remembered her mother talk about how her father was tortured and brainwashed into thinking Katniss was the enemy. That's why he sometimes gets irrationally angry after he spaces out. It was a rare occurrence for him to have bad flashbacks but Little knew now why they happen.
Little couldn't help but feel like there was some stuff her mother was still holding back on, but she didn't press it. She had seen her face and how painful it was for her mother to talk about her time as a soldier. Especially, when she talked about the invasion of the Capitol and losing her sister Primrose.