A Last Requiem

And someone way down here

Loses someone dear

THE sound of crunching leaves is something she cannot understand. Her eyes stray to the earth and she is surprised to see that it is her own foot's doing. She blinks. She could not have changed overnight, could she?

With a sigh she continues to stride with less noise, as though it is not the most natural thing to do. She chuckles. It is not, of course. There was only one person in this empty new world who could walk with downright silence. Only one —

Don't go there, Katniss.

She gasps.

No.

Once more, she wills her eyes to blink. She never thought it would be tough to threaten the tears back. They are after all the first ones that she makes for him. Her throat is tightening, too. It would have been better for her to run if not for her knees that are startlingly weak.

She sees a rabbit scurrying among the roots of a tree. The urge to reach behind her back overwhelms her greatly that her right hand makes a swift upward movement only to jerk back at once. In her frustration, she kicks a stone harder than is necessary but it merely flies a few feet away.

For a second it makes her think about retrieving the bow and arrows from the hollowed out tree, but she stops herself right away. A short, hysterical laugh escapes her lips.

What for?

Her own definition of hunting goes back into her father, faraway back. The meaning that was once attached to him was changed when she was twelve and it had changed so much since then. Now it is going to change again, but perhaps to vanish for good.

Because no matter how much she tries to deny it, the bow and arrows are nothing but useless to her now.

She arrives at her purpose eventually. While she sees the rock whose existence led to some bittersweet recollections she now has to live alone with forever, she does not dare come close as she intended. This time the strength reserved to even touch it utterly evades her, so she simply leans against a tree. She stares as her thoughts drift beyond the ill‒fated rock, into the only thing she aches to keep.

Gale.

And she is sixteen again. Gale guarding her back as she focuses on shooting the fox that runs away from them. Gale always teasing about her poorly made snares. Tossing berries with him and laughing as they wish each other good luck…

She used to know his smile, and it kind of made her wish she had known him all her life. Yet behind such gentleness lies the raging determination to give them a better future. She can still bring to mind the fierceness in his charcoaled eyes as he talked about the two of them running away and leaving Twelve behind forever.

But there it is again. How could every thought of Gale scream forever when he is nowhere near to assure her that their kind of eternity is still true? And how could she have the spirit to grieve for that stolen promise when it was she who stopped hanging on?

For a moment she tries to recall why she is in the woods, why she is temporarily running away from the ironically burned out inferno that is the Victor's Village.

District Two.

It was what Greasy Sae said. She tried to swallow hard the bile that seemed to rush upward. Suddenly felt the need to grasp the edge of the table. In that instant she wanted to bolt through the door, away from that dreadful place. She mumbled something like hunting to Greasy Sae before she strode outside without bothering to take a coat.

So that's it, Gale?

Just tell her to shoot straight and then run off? People should have better things to say when they decide to walk out of someone's life. Not just to shoot straight. That was pathetic. But she attempts to fight off a sob, because she never wanted him to say goodbye at all. The possibility that she and Gale might not share the same new Panem is something she never prepared herself.

She allows her teeth to sink into her lips until she can taste the sharp, metallic taste of her blood. It might help her know if she still lives, even if it is a bitter kind of existence.

That's Gale. He did not say what deserved to be said the most. It was like tearing off the page of a book where the finest lines were written, ripping them to shreds, and scattering them on the street to remain with the dust. The people who knew them will eternally walk that street staring at those torn pieces without truly knowing about the story they tell.

She cannot admit it but perhaps it is also the reason why he left. Even in this place she cannot say aloud her own unforgivable mistakes. How she hasn't read the signs before she was thrown into the Games. How she chose to see the darker side of her hunting partner instead of searching his eyes so she could still have seen the boy with the snares. How she did not take the chance to tell him that she loves him, however incomplete that love is. No chance will ever be given to her again, and she will have to spend the rest of her life looking over to her side only to see that he is not there.

She slides into the ground without so much of her attention. Her senses only register the flimsy surface of this place. There is wind. Leaves rustle among each other. The sun shines. And birds fly and sing.

There was a time in her childhood when her father would sing to her songs that are as old as time. Of these she liked one that spoke of a promising tomorrow, where happiness could really stay for good. Not something transient, like during Parcel Day. She sings.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes

And when they open again, the sun will rise.

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place where I love you.

How fitting. This forest is the only place where she could love Gale, where she could hold him. It is the only world where she is allowed to make him hers. Once again the forest welcomes her even with all the hurt inside, all for what she and Gale had. So much more for what they would have had.

Something like living by the hidden lake. She would have agreed to a life amidst the trees. She swallows hard one more time.

She places her arms on her knees and bows her head on them. Her eyes close and she counts as she waits for Gale to appear soundlessly by her side. The same exact position. Old habits are truly hard to die.

But she stops counting. She sees with closed eyes the sadness in Gale when he handed her that arrow. She sees him using his own body to cover her against the bombs that dropped from the enemy planes. She sees herself not even thinking twice as she ran to cover his body already drenched with his blood. She sees their first kiss in the meadow by the fence. Then the morning before she was reaped.

Please turn up, she thinks desperately. Her body is already shaking in anticipation of impending sobs.

She sees her own excitement when Gale handed her a basket of strawberries just because she was sick. Their first fight. Their first birthdays with each other present. She sees the time when she finally killed the cat that was responsible for the nickname she will no longer hear.

She lifts her head to find sunlight seeping through the canopy of trees above. So the sun still shines. In the last of hopes, she turns to look around and back to the trees that now appear to taunt her for waiting in vain.

She closes her eyes again.

"Well, Catnip, stealing's punishable by death, or hadn't you heard?"

This time she yields to the tears that have taken a long time coming. She is certain they will flow for a while.