Title: Panem Nostrum
Author: sopaltenbass
Fandom: The Hunger Games trilogy
Beta: None
Disclaimer: 1. This is a work of fan-fiction. 2. No money is made on this work. 3. Suzanne Collins retains her rights.
Rating: PG-13/T for themes of violence
WIP/Length: Complete/1843 words
Main Character(s): Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Haymitch Abernathy, Gale Hawthorne, and others
Warnings: Torture/abuse of minors, mild language, mentions of character death.
Spoilers: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay (basically the entire series...)
Summary: Katniss reflects back on the events of her life after the events portrayed in Mockingjay but before the epilogue
Author's Notes: This idea came to me literally out of nowhere at 3 AM one day and refused to leave me alone...so I reread the trilogy over the next four days and dove in to writing this. The interspersing text is the Latin translation of the Lord's Prayer. No offense is meant to anyone through this portrayal of the prayer. I just couldn't help it once I thought of the title and then when I thought of all the ways the phrases could be reinterpreted through the lens of the story. Enjoy!
Panem Nostrum
Pater noster
Our father. That is what Haymitch has become to both Peeta and me. He was the one who professed to look after us in the Games. He and I developed a sort of secret code. I trused him and yet, I didn't at the same time. He was the one person I knew would always tell me the truth and not sugarcoat it. In the Quarter Quell, we made a deal. Since he had favored me in the 74th Hunger Games, this time we would make sure Peeta made it out alive. In the aftermath, I knew he had irrevocably broken my trust in him, but I still had to respect him. He was still more of a father figure than I had known in such a long time.
Peeta on the other hand, has only come to see Haymitch as a father since the destruction of Twelve. When we came back after the Districts' revolt against the Capitol and Thirteen's President Coin's attempt at democratization, he had to come to terms not only with the extent of his hijacking but also with the loss of his mother and father. I don't know how much of a loss he counts his mother who always seemed so cruel to him, but his father was always kind to me. I'm sure he misses him.
qui es in caelis
Who art in Heaven. It really is more of a question. Who iis/i in Heaven, if there is such a place? I'm sure most of the Tributes wouldn't merit a place there. We have killed too many. But I'm sure there must be a special place reserved in Hell for the people like President Snow who took such pleasure in tormenting so many. In killing so many. In living in such an abhorrent manor as to take delight and even entertainment from watching innocent children rip each other to shreds. In ruining so many lives. Because the victors, despite "winning" the right to live, really are the losers of the Games. They lose friends, allies, any feeling of security they may have misguidedly had, and the right to live a normal life.
I'm not surprised Haymitch drinks himself into oblivion. I'm not surprised it didn't work out between Gale and me. I'm not surprised Peeta still struggles through many of his days, and I through many of my nights. We have all been changed irrevocably by the Games. By being crowned "victors". And what about Finnick? Annie? Johanna? Beetee? Mags? All of us have suffered our own specialized form of torture. And all of us have our ways of coping.
sanctificetur nomen tuum
Hallowed be your name. Well, that's the theory anyway. That's what they tell you all those years in school. And that's how they make the Games seem less terrifying. Become a victor, move to the village, live in the lap of luxury in the midst of your district's suffering. Your name held in high esteem for the rest of your life.
Well, that's bullshit. All of our names were mud after the Games. And why? Because we sought a way to beat the system. Victors are not nice people. Well, maybe except for Peeta, the unintentional victor. The unwilling victor. It was always his mission to keep me alive. He never intended to make it out of our first Games. And when we went back for the Quarter Quell, and Haymitch and I had what I thought was a deal to keep him alive this time, he still wanted to keep me alive more than anything else. Peeta is truly selfless. He deserves a hallowed name.
adveniat regnum tuum
Your kingdom come. President Snow wanted a kingdom, it seems. So did President Coin for all her talk of democracy and winning back the districts from the Capitol. In the end, where did it get either of them? They're both dead, Coin by my hand and Snow as good as. Neither of them deserved one.
People might argue that we, the victors, come back to our districts as kings and queens but they would be deluded. We come back to a life of pain and suffering and torment. And so many of us are desperate for an escape.
fiat voluntas tua
Your will be done. In the arena, you rely so much on your wits and instincts, but ultimately, you aren't in control at all. You're at the mercy of the Gamemakers like Seneca Crane and Plutarch Heavensbee. Men whose only concern was to make the Games entertaining for the Capitol residents for whom the Games were the high point of the year.
I never held any illusion that people would do my will as the Mockingjay. I was a symbol and nothing else. My propos show that only too well. None of us can really hold any power over anyone. The destruction of this illusion is what led to Crane's murder and my ostracism both in and out of the Games. There was always a sense of censorship surrounding everybody and everything in Panem and if you had the courage to disrupt that, you were an outcast.
sicut in caelo et in terra
On earth as it is in Heaven. In the arena, as it is in the twisted minds of the Gamemakers. I don't trust anyone who claims to be God or have power over people as a god. I'm not even sure there is a God. If there is, he certainly hasn't cared much for anyone in Panem for as long as I can remember. It might be better to say on earth as it is in Hell.
Panem nostrum cotidianum
Our daily bread. Now we actually have daily bread. Before, even Eleven, the agricultural district, struggled to provide enough food for its residents. Tesserae were the one way to ensure you had at least a meager crust of bread every day, but Tesserae also upped your chances of being sent to the Hunger Games and no parent wants that for their child, no matter how hungry they might be. Some, like Gale and I, took the Tesserae anyway, to feed our younger siblings. They should not be punished for an unjust system any more than adults or adolescents should, but they should be especially protected if they can't understand the reason why they must be.
da nobis hodie
Give us today. We are reduced to living day to day, all of us victors. It is hard enough to face the world after what we have been put through, but to have the specter of the rest of your life before you when you know in your heart you could and perhaps should be dead, that is the hardest of all. Give us today. Take us tomorrow. We don't thank you for our past.
et dimitte nobis
And release really might have been kinder if the Games had been a means of population control. They would still have served their supposed purpose of punishing the Districts for their uprising during the Dark Days. But once a victor emerges, the Gamemakers had it well within their power to end that person's life. They showed their cruelty most keenly perhaps in the way they hallowed them instead. Made them live out their days after the horrors they saw and committed in the arena.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead.
debita nostra
From our debts. Our supposed disloyalty for which we are still being punished. From our debts they subtracted more than what we didn't even owe. They took our lives and our livelihood. They took every beauty, every joy, every spot of brightness. And they destroyed it.
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris
As we also release those who trespass against us. That was the mindset to survive the Games. Your fellow tributes killed your friends and allies in the arena, if you were lucky enough to have them, and you repaid them in kind.
It's why I hanged the dummy as Seneca Crane in my session with the Gamemakers before the Quarter Quell. He took my life, metaphorically, and since I couldn't take his myself, I took it in effigy. I suppose it's also why I killed Coin in the end. She used me, and in my own way, I used her. To send a message: I may have been the Mockingjay, but I am a person, and I will not be manipulated in your sorry excuse for a game anymore.
et ne nos inducas intentationem
And lead us not into temptation. All of us victors have been led into temptation. We have all been used. Finnick was used for his body. Beetee was used for his brains. Johanna was used for her biting wit. Peeta was used for his voice. And I, I was used for my symbolism. The girl on fire started a firestorm that could not be extinguished. The mockingjay stood in defiance of the Capitol. The victor was portrayed as the girl who could do no wrong.
The problem with idols on pedestals is their tendency to fall off.
sed libera nos a malo
But deliver us from evil. The Capitol erases all signs of their torture when you become a victor. They gave Peeta a new leg. They removed all of my scars, even those I didn't get in the Games. But they can never really deliver you from the evil that lies within. As a victor, you have to live with the fact that you killed to get where you are. You have to live with the nightmares, the visions, the memories.
You can never go back to make it all okay again, and yet, you are constantly dragged there.
quia tuum est regnum
For yours is the kingdom. I suppose that's the one way to go on living after you've been there. To realize that you really are in control of your actions, your decisions. You are the master of your own being.
et potestas
And the power. You know you have power and you know how best to use it. You won't be deluded into punishing those who in no way deserve to be punished.
et gloria in saecula
And the glory forever. But only as long as forever for those who remember your imposed glory. There will come those after you who will not remember. Will not be told your story.
If Peeta and I have learned anything from our experiences in dealing with the Capitol, it is that glory is highly overrated. Glory has sent Gale into weapons development in Two. My best friend is now miles and miles away and I will most likely never see him again. Peeta and I live out our "glory days" at home in Twelve. We seek our solitude, him in his painting and me in my hunting. We do not speak about what has happened. Our glory will die with us, and that is the way it should always have been. In our Panem