Musings Of A Mockingjay

As I have done many times before, I enter the woods which border District 12, armed with my bow and quiver of arrows, my game bag slung over my shoulder. Ready for a day's hunting. In my mind, I picture the girl who used to hunt these very woods, the girl who had to provide for her family after her father died in the mines. The girl whose refusal to play the Hunger Games according to the Capitol's rules gave an oppressed people the courage to rise up and overthrow those who had used their children as pawns for more than seventy years. The girl who became the symbol of what became known as the Mockingjay Rebellion. The girl who was on fire. The girl I was ten years ago.

This year would have been the year of the Eighty-fifth Hunger Games, but there are no Hunger Games now; Paylor abolished them shortly after she was voted in as president. No more reapings. No more kids being torn away from their families and sent to die. No more arenas. The existing arenas have been destroyed, all seventy-five of them. Yes, I said seventy-five. Coin's plans for a Seventy-sixth Hunger Games using kids from the Capitol did not go ahead, not that I really wanted them to. I only voted "yes" to her proposal because I needed her to think I was on her side. By even suggesting another Hunger Games, she'd shown herself to be as bad as President Snow, as bad as those who devised the Games in the first place. And that's why I assassinated her at the precise moment I was supposed to kill Snow. Not that he lasted long after that anyway.

Coriolanus Snow. Alma Coin. Both of them willing to use others as pawns in their plans. Both willing to do whatever it took to cling on to power. Neither of them was any real loss to Panem; the nation is better off without them and their way of thinking. The way of thinking that finds it acceptable to sacrifice the lives of a nation's children. And not just in the Hunger Games. For a moment, I flash back to that day outside the president's mansion. The day a hovercraft - I've never found out who was behind it - dropped those exploding parachutes on a crowd of child refugees. The day I lost my sister.

Prim, for whom I stepped forward to volunteer for the Hunger Games. Killed along with the other medics who went to the aid of the children who survived when the first lot of parachutes exploded, not knowing the rest of the parachutes were primed to go off as well. Ten years later, I still miss her, still find myself remembering little details. How she used to polish our father's shaving mirror even after he was gone. How her blouse came untucked, forming a duck's tail. How much she loved her cat, Buttercup. He's still around, as cantankerous as ever, but he's getting older now and may only have a few more years in him. When the time comes, I will bury him near the evening primroses Peeta planted in memory of my sister; her real name was Primrose. It's what she and Buttercup would have wanted.

Buttercup. The most hideous cat in the world with his squashed nose, his torn ear, his muddy yellow fur. I tolerated him for Prim's sake and because he was a good mouser, but that didn't stop me from entertaining notions of turning his fur into a pair of gloves. And he in turn disliked, or at least mistrusted, me. But something changed after he turned up in 12, half-starved and wounded, having walked home all the way from District 13. Looking for Prim. I yelled at him to go away, told him Prim was dead and he wasn't going to see her again, but he wouldn't go. Instead, he ended up guarding me, just like he used to guard Prim.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Buttercup and I have become the best of friends. But I have developed a grudging affection for him over the past ten years. Maybe it's because he's the last link I have with my sister since my mother chose not to come back to District 12 with the rest of the surviving population. Gale, my old hunting partner, didn't return either, settling in District 2, where his mother and siblings later joined him. But, even now, I don't think I'd be able to face him, knowing he devised the bomb which killed Prim. Or at least one very similar. My mother lives in District 4 now, working at the hospital she helped to set up, though she did come back to 12 for my wedding.

My wedding. To Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread. The boy who once admitted on live television that he'd had a crush on me for most of his life. Haymitch gave me away; we may not always see eye to eye, but he's the closest thing I have to a father. It wasn't the extravaganza the Capitol had in mind when we were supposed to be the star-crossed lovers from District 12; it was more like the weddings I witnessed while I was growing up. A simple affair, culminating in the traditional ceremony where Peeta and I toasted bread together. But in many ways that made the whole thing seem more real.

Real. That reminds me of the game called Real or Not Real. The one they used to help bring Peeta back after the Capitol hijacked him and turned him against me. He would mention something he thought had happened and would then be told whether or not it had happened as his distorted memories remembered it. Or if it had happened at all. It seemed to work because, though he was still suffering occasional flashbacks when he returned to 12, they eventually subsided. Now, he hardly ever has them at all. Which is more than I can say for my nightmares. Even after ten years, I still sometimes wake up from dreams where I am chased by mutts, where I watch everyone I ever cared about die. I don't think they'll ever really go away, but having Peeta beside me when I wake helps me. Comforts me.

I sometimes think about what would have happened if Effie hadn't called Prim's name at the reaping, if it had been another girl who was chosen as District 12's female tribute in the Seventy-fourth Games. Almost certainly, I wouldn't have felt compelled to volunteer - the main reason I did it for Prim was because I loved her so much and would do anything to protect her. Even at the risk of my own life. But no me in the arena would have meant no me to cover Rue with flowers after Marvel killed her, no me to hold out that handful of nightlock berries in a desperate attempt to make sure Peeta and I both survived. It was those incidents, those small acts which showed that the other tributes and I were not just pieces in the Capitol's cruel Games, that helped trigger the events which followed. Put simply, no me in the arena would have meant no Mockingjay Rebellion.

And no Mockingjay Rebellion would have meant the Hunger Games would still be around. Kids would still be dying in the arena every year with their parents forced to watch on television. It was the fear of this more than anything else that made me decide I never wanted to have children. The same fear shared by every parent in Panem, with the exception of those who lived in the Capitol or District 13, during the seventy-five years in which the Games were such a big part of our lives. Even though there's no longer any basis for that fear, I'm still reluctant to consider the possibility of having children. But I'm not as set against it as I once was, so maybe someday . . .

A lot has changed in Panem over the last ten years. Not only are there no more Hunger Games, we have a Constitution now and one of its clauses is designed to make sure no president can cling to power for as long as Snow did. We hold elections every five years and, though the current president is allowed to stand for re-election, they may only do so once. Paylor was re-elected five years ago, so this will be her last year in office. They're already beginning to talk about who will be elected as her replacement; whoever it is will be only the second democratically elected president in the history of Panem. It still feels strange being able to choose our own ruler, instead of being ruled by someone who schemed and murdered their way to power, someone who's willing to use the nation's youth as pawns. Those days are behind us now and I hope that's the way they'll stay.

A mockingjay, the bird which became the symbol of the Rebellion, the bird depicted on the pin Madge gave me before my first Hunger Games, lands in a nearby tree. I sing a simple four-note melody, the one Rue used to let those working in District 11's orchards know it was time to knock off. A pause, then the bird repeats the notes back to me. Other mockingjays join in and the woods are soon filled with the sound of their singing. A beautiful, otherworldly sound. When I heard that sound in the arena, it was interrupted by the arrival of Cato, pursued by the wolf mutts that had been made to look like the dead tributes. The finale of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. Now, I can just stand and listen and, as I do so, I find myself doing something I haven't done for ten years. Mentally running through a list of facts about myself and my experiences.

My name is Katniss Mellark. I am twenty-seven years old. I am married to Peeta. I live in District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I was the Mockingjay. I was the face of the Rebellion which ended President Snow's rule. District 12 was destroyed, but it has been rebuilt. There are no more Hunger Games.