This story is also posted on Archive of our Own, under the same name.
Summary: Katniss grew up in the Capitol, a city where nothing is as it seems. The citizens are slaves to President Snow's will- too scared to go against him. The Hunger Games are a barbaric tradition, one Katniss would like to abolish- if she could ever have that kind of power. Her dad died when she was young, and the reasons for his death are still unknown and described as an unfortunate accident, which she knows isn't true. The whole of Panem has a plethora of secrets, ones Katniss will need to uncover if she even wants to come close to abolishing the Hunger Games.
This is her story.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Gales or any of the characters. All rights go to Suzanne Collins and Lionsgate. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
Chapter 1
When she is 4, Katniss is happy. As happy as she can be, anyway, when one lives in the Capitol and wears a different diamond dress every day and gets her food served to her on a silver platter. Like, literally silver.
She is naive, young, unbridled by the troubles of the world. Innocent. She has not yet seen the horrors Panem has to offer. She laughs, easy, cheerful, real, brings joy to the Everdeen estate. Her mother smiles whenever she sees her, and her father picks her up in joy and kisses her on the cheek, his beard scratching her neck.
When she turns 6, her parents tell her news "of great joy". Katniss knows it must be related to the reason that her mother suddenly has a roundness to her stomach. She might have been expecting some jewellery, or maybe a weapon - what felt like everyone had already started training, but her parents refused to begin- it was accompanied with a subtle shake of her head and distasteful muttering.
What she doesn't expect? Prim.
Primrose Everdeen. Her to be sister, apparently. She feels curious- who is this Prim?
Her parents let her meet her sister. She was tiny, and chubby, and when Katniss tries to poke her, Prim takes her index finger in her tiny hand and wraps her fingers around it. Looking in the face of Prim, of her sister, she promises to herself that she will never, ever let her get hurt.
Is the first promise she makes to herself that she does not break.
When she is 8, her worldview suddenly changes- her absolute trust in the Capitol, in Snow and his ability to keep them, as citizens of Panem, safe, is shattered.
Her dad gets murdered.
An accident, they tell her, their comforting smiles as fake as their words. An accident, they whisper, their voices like vipers, lulling her to obedience. An accident, they lie, and Katniss suddenly realised she doesn't trust the Capitol as much as she convinced herself she did.
She still sees his broken bloodied body in her dreams.
She sobs when she attends his funeral, and hears several sympathetic voices. They are lies too, however, because when she comes to school her so called friends are pointing and laughing mockingly and in a flash she's a "crybaby" a "weak excuse for a Capitol citizen" and suddenly she finds herself so very alone. She punches the next person to do so much as sneer at her in the hallways. At the end of the day, when she comes home, she dashed to her mother and just sobs, her mum's smell of iodoform infiltrating her nose.
Later, when she has calmed down enough, she stares at her 8 year old face in the mirror, and makes herself another promise, nay, a rule.
" Don't show weakness in front of others," she thinks. "It brings too much trouble."
When Katniss turns 10, her mum lets her watch the Hunger Games for the first time in her life. Every time she's ever heard the Hunger Games mentioned, it is described as this amazing entertainment and she's excited, so excited. The reaping is aired on her tv, and, to her surprise, only a few people look particularly happy about being chosen. Most tributes (exactly why they are called tributes, she's not sure,) are sobbing and hugging their family. She supposes they are tears of happiness, but it doesn't look it.
She watches the Tribute Parade, attends it, actually. The girl from district 1 is dazzling, charming. The boy from 7 has a harsh roughness about him, the kind that makes her shrink away with fear. All the tributes look stunning, and she feels slightly envious- she has never looked as beautiful as them, and she lives in the Capitol!
Katniss quickly learns not to be jealous.
She's sitting in her room, her face anxiously awaiting the beginning of the Games. She's just come back from school, and she would have started her homework, but she's far too excited to wait and watch them on disc. The tributes are sent up onto their platforms. She notices the landscape.
"A desert, how very odd, what kind of entertainment could a desert provide?" She wonders to herself, but quickly focuses her attention on the screen. A countdown begins. There are instructions being shouted, but she can't hear them. In the middle of the desert, there is a cornucopia filled with weapons and what seems like bags. She wonders if the entertainment is a play.
Then, the countdown ends.
There is a flash of movement, and then Katniss sees the most horrifying thing- the district 1 girl she had just thought so highly of strangles someone and bashes someone else's skull in with her bare hands. Then, several tributes reach the cornucopia, and she realises exactly why none of the tributes seemed to be happy to be chosen.
There is no better way to describe it than a bloodbath. Those several who reached the cornucopia have take weapons, and are using them effectively to what can only be described as slaughter. She sees it on her screen, the blood pouring out of the face of some boy from 5 she never learnt the name of, the intestines of some awfully young girl (she couldn't be more than twelve, and someone has killed her so mercilessly and cruelly). She runs out of her room and vomits into her toilet. Stares at the mirror in horror.
"There is no way," she thinks to herself, "no way that that monstrosity was really the entertainment everyone meant. Its barbaric!"
She rushes back into her room and turns off her tv. When she goes to bed, she dreams of blood.
The next morning, as soon as Katniss wakes up, she rushes to the kitchen where her mum usually sits, drinking coffee and reading a book. She busts through the doors, her countenance screaming outrage and indignation. Her mum notices, of course she does.
"Honey? What's wrong?" She asks, her voice soft and kind. "Is it about the Hunger Games?"
"No, it's about dinner yesterday. Of course its about the Hunger Games! They're inhume, uncivilised, barbaric! They should be banned!"
Her mum's face goes soft for a second, and then hardens instantly.
"You can't say that." She states, and her voice is cold." Not in the Capitol. I don't know if you noticed, but no one disagrees with President Snow and his policies."
"But mum!"
"No, Katniss!" She almost screams. "This is not up to discussion. Do not disagree with Snow, or so help me God!"
Her mom stands up and leaves, and Katniss is left staring at the kitchen table, flabbergasted.
"Well," she thinks to herself, "Rule number 2: don't disrespect the president, and don't disagree with him, either.
By the time she turns 16, she has accumulated a plethora of 'rules'. Simple, everyday quotidian things. Rules like "don't speak your mind", "don't question" "don't argue", "don't show weakness". Don't trust, don't reveal yourself to anyone.
And she obeys them daily, hiding herself behind fancy jewellery and makeup, behind rumours and gossip. She hides her feelings, her emotions, her very self is kept secret. She becomes just another Capitol citizen, just like everyone else- ignorant of everything, even though she really isn't.
Showing weakness is not a choice, not in Panem.