I own none of the characters or places. AN at the end.
Life kills you.
Watching the sunrise for the top of a grassy hill is the perfect example of this. It seems so romantic – the sun rising to create a breathtaking backdrop for a silhouetted figure sitting or standing (it doesn't really matter but standing somehow seems better) with the grass sparkling around them as the rays of light hit the morning dew. For an even more cliché image you can make that hill a cliff that drops off into the ocean where the waves provide the perfect slow and steady soundtrack as the new day arrives. The situation is so beautiful and perfect it's nauseating. But in that good way, like when people want tothrow up because something is so cute. You've never understood that sentiment.
Of course it's the idea of this that is perfect. The reality of it is less so.
In reality you're sitting – not standing – because you've been there for hours. All night really. Your butt is soaked through from the wet grass and you're not sure it's ever going to dry nor can you remember what life is like when your underwear didn't refuse to stop giving you a wet wedgie. In reality you're cold, lonely, and tired and you'd kill for sleep or coffee. Both really. In reality you're there because you don't have anywhere else to be. Not anymore. In reality it's been so long since you belonged somewhere that you miss the past where you were told to be somewhere so you weren't stuck reenacting the sickening cliches that the Capitol idiots seemed to love so much.
Life took an interesting turn after the rebellion. No one saw it coming, no one expected things to crumble. The goal was to make Panem a place where children weren't killed every year in a show of control and power to make sure people toed the line. In a way it was a success, children aren't sacrificed every year in a gruesome spectacle for the Capitol's enjoyment anymore. Instead they die everyday on the streets. They die from starvation, exposure, injury, street fights, anything and everything.
It turned out that 75 years under a tyranny does not inspire a lot of trust in government, even when that government was formed by the people who overthrew said tyranny. It's almost funny how the Mockingjay managed to destroy not one but two power structures at the helm of Panem, casting the country into chaos and poverty as anarchy took hold and the district people took 75 years of built up grief and anger out on the Capitol and it's supporters. The Girl on Fire was smart to kill Coin, there is no arguing the woman would have been a second Snow. But your nickname has never been more fitting and you can't help in feeling justified for labeling her as Brainless even if no one would have guessed that the rebel leader's public execution would have led the citizens to decide they couldn't trust anyone in power. Their attempts to gain control and build a government had been mercilessly destroyed and the once beloved rebel Victors had been labeled as Snow-supporters for trying to keep his power alive even with his death.
Your face is plastered on makeshift posters everywhere, alongside Katniss's and Enobaria's. You were the only three to make it out. Peeta was the first to be killed, his 'cooperation' with Snow during your captivity in the Capitol being the perfect match to light the fire of rage that lead to the Victor hunt. You watched him die, unable to do anything as the crowd bayed for his blood and people took turns loudly debating the best way to make him suffer. In the end someone had grown impatient and simply bashed his head in with a rock, killing him on the fourth blow. You cried for a week.
Haymitch had fallen easily, his alcoholism working for him for once. You heard he had been so drunk that he couldn't feel anything so they gave up the torture and slit his throat. Annie had also been easy, though to your relief it had been short and simple, her mental health and status as a mother apparently garnering some pity. You still had no idea what had happened to her son. Beetee was the one missing piece. He was dead, they had the body to prove that, but no one knew how and that's what scared you the most. The popular thought was suicide and you hoped with everything you had that was the truth.
They had labeled you a sinner. Katniss and Enobaria too of course. It was such an odd, outdated term you had to break into a library in the palace to look it up. It fit though and in some way it brought you some relief. You finally had a label for what you were. Murderer had always been there, but it wasn't enough. A murderer kills and what you did in the arena was so much worse. You sinned. You killed other children for sport and mass entertainment, and a small part of you enjoyed it. You smiled as you sunk your axe in the chests of kids who you never met before, then you gave a speech filled with hollow praise for the fallen 'warriors' as their families cried and the Capitol breathed down your neck. You are a sinner, on the run from the world and it feels right. It feels like atonement. It feels like the punishment you've been looking for all along.
You were going to find Enobaria and Katniss before you saw those posters. That was the plan. But now, as you sit here like a girl waiting for her lover to find her and kiss her passionately as the sun rises behind them, you decide that there's no point. They're as good at surviving as you are – they've proven that – and they don't need your help. You're not sure they would want it. You're not sure you want to give it. Either way you've come to a decision. You are a sinner at dawn, a new person who deserves whatever life does to you. And life always kills you.
AN: Okay so the title and first line of this actually come from a prompt for a writing exercise I did in a workshop last night. Of course this is not the actual piece I wrote but it does contain a lot of direct lines and the theme is the same, it's just tweaked to fit this fandom. All I can really say is that I loved what I wrote for various reasons and wanted to share it somehow, but the original was too rough and way too personal to show anyone as it was and I thought if I was gonna edit it to share might as well do it in the form of fanfiction.
My original intention was for this to be Joniss. It didn't happen and I can't say I'm sorry about that. The idea of shoving a relationship in here just felt wrong.