To anon. white: I find it so funny that you should ask for something dramatic. I had this burst of inspiration while delivering papers yesterday. (I talk to myself while delivering papers; it's extraordinarily efficient, and it helps me to get my "writing" done when I don't actually have anything to write with.)

From this Saturday (January 22) to next Sunday (January 30) there will be daily updates. :) I'm on semester break.

For now, though, a bit of a teaser chapter.

I don't own the Hunger Games.

I tell Rue every painful detail of my tragic life, beginning with my father and ending with Gale. I don't know why, but I trust her. I trust that fragile warrior with the wide, perceptive brown eyes and the humble background. As my story goes on – telling her about father and the mockingjays, how my family barely gets by – I can see that Rue begins to trust me, too. Her emotions are close to the surface; I may not be Peeta, but I do recognize what I see in her face. I see it all the time in my little sister.

"How are you doing?" she asks softly.

I pause. "I'm getting along."

"I'm oldest of five kids, and I wasn't part of the wealthy, back in Eleven," says Rue solemnly. "I know how it feels... but you... your father. I can't even imagine what that would feel like."

We both stop for a second, because I had said the same thing to her not too long ago. I smile a little. "Then I guess we're on even ground."

"I guess we are." Rue smiles. She hesitates. "How are you eating, Katniss? How are you and your family eating?"

I frown. I look at the trust in Rue's eyes and wonder... should I tell her? I do know that I had decided just a few seconds ago that I wouldn't, but clearly, a lot had happened in the past few seconds. "Do you remember how I told you that I've never been past this fence?" I smile a little. "I lied."

"Kat..." says Peeta hesitantly. He hasn't said much; I think this is the first time he's spoken since I started talking. I turn around to him, meeting his eyes. He's leaning against a tree, watching us a bit warily.

"It's okay," says Rue. "I won't tell. I understand."

"You won't tell?" Peeta asks.

Rue nods. "Of course. If I could, I would've done the same thing." She looks out past the fence and begins talking to me again. "So, you've been out there? You hunt?"

I nod, too. "Yeah."

She looks out to the woods, the look on her face flooded with melancholy. I want to know what she's thinking, but the thoughts seem too deep to interrupt. Rue sighs. "I want to tell you a story."

I settle back down into the ground. "We're listening."

…

It had been a few months after the Games. It was a bit of a low. Things were quiet – for the first time in ages – and Rue was taking advantage of it. Although she didn't like the work too much, Rue still liked being out in the fields and the orchards and just being able to be out there, in some solitary freedom. Since Rue was rather high-profile, she still had Peacekeepers around her land. The ones she found that day, though, were unlike any other.

"We're not really Peacekeepers," admitted the younger-looking one – Rue could tell; she looked much too young to be a real Peacekeeper. She was hardly out of her teens. The woman was in her mid-thirties, probably. "But we thought you, of all people, ought to know."

"Know what?" Rue asked suspiciously. "Why are you here? Who are you?"

They answered the last question first. The woman replied, "My name's Twill. And this is Bonnie. We've run away from District Eight."

"Why would you do that?" asked Rue, baffled.

"You don't know?" Bonnie whispered.

Twill hushed her. "There's been an uprising, Rue. Since you won the Games... well, you're the youngest to ever win the Games; don't you know?" The woman sighed. "People believe... if a little twelve year old girl can beat the best, then surely the Districts can beat Panem? People had always believed that, I suppose, but rumors started floating around after you won, and..."

"Where are you going? Why?" Rue asked.

"Well, for why – our loved ones were killed in a factory explosion." Right. District Eight. Textiles. "We had to go somewhere... we heard that there was someplace where the rebellion burns brightly." Twill smiled a little humorlessly.

"The rebellion?" Rue repeated incredulously.

Twill nodded. Bonnie murmured, "District Thirteen."

Again, Rue bombards them with questions – what was happening in District Eight, that sort of thing – but even when their story ended, Rue had more questions. "Well, I guess I get why you're running. You have reason to. But why District Thirteen? What do you think you're going to find?"

"We're not sure, exactly," admitted Twill.

"It's nothing but rubble," Rue reminded them. "We've all seen the footage."

And we have – we've all seen the footage of the destruction that is District Thirteen. A stabbing reminder of the defeat of the Districts. Something the Capitol flaunts every now and then, particularly around Hunger Games time, naturally.

"That's just it. They've been using the same footage for as long as anyone in our District can remember," said Twill.

"Really?" Rue frowned, trying to think back to the images of Thirteen she'd seen on television.

"You know how they always show the Justice Building?" Twill continued. Rue nodded. She – and so many others – had seen it a thousand times. "If you look very carefully, you'd see it. Up in the far right-hand corner."

Rue knits her eyebrows. "See what?"

Twill pulled something out of her pocket, revealing a cracker with a mockingjay printed on it. Mockingjays are sort of a slap in the face to the Capitol, so it's understandable why they're the symbol for the supposed "rebellion". "A mockingjay," Twill said. "Just a glimpse of it as it flies by. The same one every time."

"Back home," Bonnie added, "we think they keep reusing the old footage because the Capitol can't show what's really there now."

Rue frowned. "But... if the Capitol is using the same footage over and over again, that means they can't go back to Thirteen, which means they know what's there. Why would the Capitol be okay with Thirteen being... alive?"

"We don't know," Twill said earnestly. "We think that the people maybe moved underground when everything on the surface was destroyed. We think they've managed to survive, and the Capitol leaves them alone because, before the Dark Days, Thirteen's principal industry was nuclear development."

"They were graphite miners," Rue said automatically. But, then – she realized that piece of information had been from the Capitol.

"A few small mines, yeah." Bonnie nodded. "But not enough to justify a population of that size. That, I guess, is the only thing we now for sure."

…

"I let them go," Rue continues, a bit wistfully, "and I hope they're happy wherever they are... but I can't stop thinking about it. It does make some sense – that there'd be a rebellion, I mean. Parts of it fit, but... it's such a chance to take. But imagine it. If a wispy kid from District Eleven, with no special training at all, can win the Hunger Games... then what can the entire country do against the Capitol? Imagine it!"

She sounds serious, and I'm kind of... at a loss for words.

"You want Katniss to take you," Peeta murmurs.

Rue blushes hotly. "I was just thinking."

The very idea of it is ridiculous. I could never leave Twelve. Never leave my mother to take care of Prim. How would they get by without me? Especially this year, with Gale turning eighteen and heading to the mines. It would be impossible for him to take care of his family, let alone mine as well. "I'm sorry," I whisper, "but I could never leave my family. I understand where you're going, and if I didn't have family here, I would go with you, but -"

"No," Rue says easily, "I understand."

But it's clear she's disappointed. I was her chance, and I didn't give it to her. I sigh. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine," she insists. But, again, she seems tentative. Rue stands up. "I have to go – Chaff and Lola'll be soiling their pants if I'm gone for very much longer. It was nice to meet you both."

Peeta and I stand up, too, but Rue doesn't leave yet.

She frowns, and digs deep into her pockets. "If you change your mind, wear this at the celebrations tonight. I'll see you in the crowd, and then I'll find a way to meet you here after sundown."

Rue holds out a pin. A mockingjay pin, holding an arrow in its beak. Despite whatever I'm thinking, I let her drop it onto my palm, which closes around the pin. I stroke the bird with my thumb. The bird that stopped to listen to my father. The bird that made the Capitol a joke. Even if barely. I share a connection with this bird. This bird of the rebellion.

"But what if I don't change my mind?" I ask. "How will I get it back to you?"

"You don't," Rue says. "I want you to keep it."

"I couldn't possibly -" I begin.

Rue shakes her head. "No. You don't even have to wear it. I know it'll be suspicious, to wear a gold pin in public, here in Twelve... but I just want you to keep it. Because then you'll remember that so long as the mockingjay lives, so does the rebellion."

Yep, that's all you're getting. :D Like I said, it's a bit of a teaser chapter. It hardly even counts as a chapter.

Remember, everyone: next week, the rebellion catches fire. Get excited. :)

Review!