Peeta spends the next day alone. Effie has decided that since Peeta has already been interviewed once before, she doesn't need to be coached. So Peeta spends most of the morning in her room doing different exercises that she can in the small space. She goes to the roof in the afternoon. She takes a nice long nap in the sunlight. When the sun starts to set, she wakes. She watched the sun set and thinks of Katniss. She touches her lips. Tomorrow was her last chance at prolonged survival. If there's one thing she was skilled at it was the interview section.
She ate a lot when she went downstairs for dinner and then retired to her room. She wanted to sleep as much as possible, suddenly the year of not sleeping much felt like it was catching up to her.
The next morning breaks Peeta's spirits too quickly. Her prep team doesn't seem to be able to look at her, many of them have tears over flowing out of her eyes. When Portia finally comes into relieve them, they all hug her very tightly. She almost start to cry when they leave, but Peeta knows it would ruin their hard work.
"Peeta," Portia says softly. "Did you ever want to get married?"
Peeta is confused by the question. "Perhaps." She finally answers. "I don't know who would marry me though. But the wedding always seemed so beautiful." Even in the same rented dress that almost all the women in District 12 wore for their wedding, each woman looked excessively beautiful. Peeta wondered if her parents would splurge for the one her mother wore when Peeta got married, but Peeta would never find that out now. "Why?"
Portia pulls out a beautiful white dress. "I wanted to dress you as a bride for this interview. Cinna agreed. He said to be careful about raising your arms though. He said you could probably do it once if Caesar wants you to twirl, but Cinna suggested you do that towards the end of your interview. Do you want to put it on?"
Peeta nods. The whole process takes nearly the rest of the day. The dress is so much heavier than anything Peeta has ever worn, but with all her weight lifting and exercise, it isn't too difficult. When she sees herself in the dress, she can't help but think that she looks like an angel.
Haymitch is in a simple grey suit that reminds her of the one Delvin wore the year before. He seems surprised at Peeta's outfit.
"I'm gonna look like I'm walking a bride down the aisle next to you." Haymitch says gruffly.
"That's the idea!" Portia says with a happy chirp.
Effie seems in love with the dress and can't stop starring. When they finally get down the where the interviews are taking place, Peeta suddenly feels as if maybe she is too dressed up. People seem to hault their conversations to look at her, and it feels like all eyes are judging. For someone who always liked to be in the background, Peeta feels like she stands out too much in the dress. But perhaps it is not just the dress, but her score. Nevertheless, Peeta tries to hold herself together.
Cashmere seems to be giving her some mix of anger and admiration, but simply ignores her to get in line for the interview. Peeta can not categorize the look that Johanna is giving her.
Each of the tributes who is still cognitive enough to incite some emotion in the audience does so. Cashmere and Gloss talk about how they will miss the citizens and hope the citizens will miss them. Beetee is smart, Finnick is flirty, and Johanna is angry. Chaff and Seeder both question President Snow. The audience is all worked up when Peeta finally steps out, but her in her dress seems to silence them.
"Wow." Caesar says in what sounds like pure awe. "Peeta, you look beautiful."
Peeta smiles bashfully before hugging the older man. "Thank you Caesar."
"May I asked why you're dressed.." Caesar seems to be struggling to find the right word, "like this?"
"Oh!" Peeta lets herself blush. "I had always hoped that one day I would find true love and get married." She admits. "But now, since I won't have the chance, I wanted to at least wear a wedding dress. I know it's a little too much," She says, batting her eyes and hoping it makes her look younger. "But it was something I really wanted."
"Well you look absolutely breath taking." Caesar seems to be struggling for words too much with her. Peeta wants their witty banter, but she doesn't even know how she would achieve it. Finally the older man seems to find something to question her on. "I'm sure if you make if back to District 12 though, there will be dozens of people who want to marry you."
Peeta doesn't know what to say then, so instead she directs attention to the dress. "Maybe they'll let me wear this." She says with a grin. "Isn't it so beautiful?" She stands to twirl then, lifting her arms. It wasn't as if the conversation was going anywhere. As she twirls she hears screams, and wonders if it is because of how beautiful the dress is. But then she smells smoke. She looks down and realizes that her dress is burning away. Once again, a call to Katniss, but Peeta doesn't mind. She wonders if this was why the gown was so heavy. She lifts her arms and realizes now that she wasn't meant to just be on fire, she was meant to be a symbol: The mockingjay.
Caesar reaches out to pluck a feather off of her now. "You're like a bird."
"A mockingjay, I think." Peeta says. "It's the bird on the pin that Katniss wears. It seems that District 12 has stopped using the old coal miner trick and started to model us after previous victors." She hopes this comes off as a joke.
Caesar laughs a little. "I'm surprised they didn't dye you're hair brown!"
"Oh, they would never!" Peeta says with a laugh. "And here I thought I was getting to wear a pretty wedding dress." She adds. "Thank god this happened now."
"Ah, yes, we'd hate for you to go up in flames at your wedding." Caesar says with a laugh. The banter Peeta had been hoping for finally comes when the interview is coming to a close. She doesn't know if Haymitch will be able to rouse the audience back to the frenzy they had been in before. Things didn't go according to Peeta's plan, and she knows Cinna had something to do with it. Hopefully she still looked like the clueless young tribute being sent off to the arena. But even if she now looked like she was trying to incite a rebellion, it didn't matter. She would be dead soon.
Haymitch is surly and reminds her of Gale. When he is asked if he has any last words, he starts to talk about his geese. "I want Katniss and Gale to let them go." He says, like it's an order. "I think they'll try to eat them. They'll set them on fire and eat my geese." He sounds like a drunk old man. "I don't want them to do that. Set my geese free and let them run away. I don't want them to get killed in District 12. Let the predators out in the forrest get them, but let them be free." The way he says it so seriously really makes it seem like Haymitch is beyond drunk. "Do it now!" He says with a shout. "Before I go into the games and die. Let all of them out of their cage so no one kills them when I'm dead." Caesar finally calms Haymitch down and the last interview is done. Haymitch makes his way back to his seat. Peeta grabs his hand to steady him, and then on impulse grabs Chaff's wrist since he is so close. As Caesar tries to finish his closing remarks, something amazing happens. The tributes all grab hands. They try to cut the power, but with the lighting behind the victors, everyone watching the broadcast can see. For one brief moment, they are all united.
Everything after that is a mess. The tributes are rushed to their rooms. Effie goes to Haymitch's and Portia comes to Peeta's.
"Don't come tomorrow morning." Peeta says gravely. "In the mess of everything, find an excuse. Get here too late. It's okay."
"Why?" Portia seems confused. "I still don't understand what happened with the dress."
"Neither do I." Peeta says with a shake of her head. "But with my score of 12 and with the way my dress made me become a target, I don't think I am safe to be around." Peeta holds Portia's hand in her. "Please."
Portia finally agrees.
Peeta sleeps, but the next morning comes too fast. She is surprised to see Effie there, but glad that Portia is not around. Without a stylist, Peeta is left to her own devices on the hovercraft to the arena. She does her hair into a tight ponytail. She eats and drinks until they take the food away. When they reach the Launch Room a Peace Keeper helps her with getting into her outfit for the games. He is there to make sure Peeta gets into the circular metal plate. When the time comes, Peeta gets on with no resistance. Then raised up into the arena. Her eyes takes awhile to adjust and when she finally realizes what is surrounding her, she is terrified.
There is water spreading out in every direction.
To be presented with such a challenge this early in the game devastates Peeta. So when it finally comes time to leave the podium, she simply gives up. She plops herself down right at the podium and lets her feet dip into the water. She will either sit there until it explodes, or wait until one of the tributes comes out to kill her. She never learned how to swim, and she doesn't want to die drowning. So she waits. From where she sits, she sees everything go down at the Cornocopia. Finick and Haymitch make what looks like an alliance and fight off the Career tributes from the Cornocopia. When they get what they want, they escape to the sandy part of the beach so far away. Peeta also watches Johanna run off with Beetee and Wiress. She wonders how that alliance formed. Then she sits and wonders what will happen next.
Peeta is now the only tribute left on the plate. Even Mags has made her way into the water and is headed towards Haymitch and Finnick. She wonders if she will explode or if one of the Careers will come out to kill her. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Finnick diving into the water. So it was the latter. One of the careers is coming out to kill her. The victor doesn't have a weapon with him though. She wonders if he is going to drown her with his bare hands.
"What are you doing?" Finnick asked when he got to her.
Peeta splashes her feet. "Just enjoying my first time this close to the ocean. Watching the waves. Pretending people aren't murdering each other. It's nice."
Finnick seems to pause a moment in the water. He grins. "Haymitch owes me money now, he bet you'd finally cracked. But you can't swim."
"Great deduction there. Nice to see you're more than just a pretty face."
Finnick reaches a hand out. "Well lets go princess. Don't want you to turn to sea foam, lets get you to the shore."
Peeta looks down at the other victor warily. "You're going to help me?" She says with an arched brow.
"That's the plan. But lets go, you're wasting time we don't really have." Peeta reluctantly decides to trust him, and it pays off. He doesn't drown Peeta, instead he helps her make her way to shore. Haymitch and Mags are there.
Peeta dries her hair out quickly and soon they decide to head towards the forest. Finnick hoists Mags onto his back. Peeta decides to trust the group. Even if they don't keep her around for long, for now, it doesn't hurt her chances to stay near them. They trek through the forrest and don't find any sources of water. It worries Peeta.
The group gives her a knife to protect herself, and she tries to make herself useful by slashing through vines and other bits of the tropical forrest that might get in the way of the other victors. As the tallest, she puts herself in front to make sure there's space for everyone else behind her.
Suddenly, as she makes a slash to cut a vine away from her path, there is a sudden jolt of energy that knocks her right out.
She wakes with a cough with all three victors kneeling down close to her.
"Forcefields." Haymitch explains. "Can't tell if they're here to keep us out or keep us in this area."
Peeta knows Haymitch has pretty good knowledge of the force fields. They are what he used to win the games twenty five years ago. The rest of the day is spent wandering through the exotic forest. Eventually they get more and more thirsty and start to worry about that. Almost right on cue, a package drops from the sky. They figure out that it is a spile. They use it to get water out of the trees. Once they drink their fill, Haymitch and Finnick go off to hunt for some food. Peeta stays behind with Mags. The night comes eventually, and Haymitch and FInnick agree to take the watch for the night since Peeta had been hurt by the force field.