Beholden

One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next…you're expected to deal with something like this. — Katniss

Part 5

I escape into my bedroom immediately following the Conversation. Throwing myself down on the bed, I stare up at the old powder blue canopy that seems far too childish now. Could I ask to have it removed? Perhaps. It just never seemed important. Not with a couple more reapings hanging over my head, possibly rendering any updates to the furnishings unnecessary. And if I'm able to age out of the reaping? What comes after that? Is tonight supposed to be a taste…?

I refuse to think of the Victory dinner as my first date. If Dad knew what had happened the day before, he'd think twice about forcing me to do this. It's just repulsive, taking away my choice. Not that he understands.

It can't count if my father both arranged it and accepted the "invitation" on my behalf. And with a guy I can only describe as a mop. And that's being generous — or aspirational. Cole could use the handle to strap to his limp spine.

Ugh, Cole. Surely having to go along with Dad's plan must count as experiencing a hostile work environment. Granted, that seems to be the predominant work environment in Panem. But I know Cole wouldn't refuse, even if he wanted to.

I guess I'll find out later if he wanted to to refuse. I really hope he wanted to. Because I'm not in the mood to hurt anyone's feelings.

This bold offensive stroke of my father's makes me I realize how much I've managed to surprise him. And the word surprise in this family is anathema. It's up there with the way people feel when they hear the word stroke or about flesh eating bacteria in relation to their loved ones. Mayors do not want surprises. And I think he's trying to avoid any new ones by setting the future in motion in his own way.

A few years ago when another townie parent on the district board mentioned that he'd had to get his daughter an updated Finnick Odair poster for her bedroom, Dad had come home and asked if I'd ever want one. I'd told him no. It's not that I don't appreciate the Adonis of the 65th Games. It just that I didn't need his image pinned to my wall, watching me sleep through paper eyes. Still, I think my response made Dad grow a bit complacent as a parent. So, I guess I can imagine his shock now.

The throat mark is quite an escalation from dismissing a Finnick Odair poster. On the other hand, you have Katniss getting engaged at 16 to another 16 year old, so I can see why Dad would think the graduating class of 76 could use some reining in.

But even this understanding about my father does little to dispel my nerves. I rise from the bed feeling like I'm full of ants. Leaving the house now will look bad, but I need a brisk walk. Or something. The weather outside doesn't encourage this, however.

Then I wonder if Hanna had any success with shopping. I turn away from the window, remembering my promise to reconcile with her. I'll keep that promise, but as I wasn't issued a deadline, I might string it out.

Thinking of Hanna reminds me of the need for a plan for the bruise. What am I going to do about it? I sit at the vanity, my fingers already feeling out the place where the skin's purple and tender. It's still a bit early to get ready, especially since my mother won't need my help to dress. She's going to spend the night in bed, hopefully not bothered too much by the sounds of the banquet downstairs. But this is a practical problem that needs a solution.

As I stare at my throat in the mirror, I'm stricken by a terrible idea. That people will see me with Cole tonight and assume that I got the bruise from my father's junior clerk. I make a strangled sound in the back of my throat before I can stop it. That's the last thing I need circulating around school, especially now that I don't have Katniss to sit next to anymore as a sort of scowling shield.

Thinking of Katniss allows a brilliant idea comes to me. Both prep teams will arrive here later with the victors. Maybe they'll have something I can use to cover it up. I don't wear makeup…Twelve doesn't provide much of a reason to dress up beyond reapings, toasting, and funerals…and I think any lingering cosmetics in mom's dressing table probably expired a decade ago.

I fish in a drawer for a flat box containing a loud silk scarf that belonged to my grandmother Undersee. She had an interesting taste in patterns and I've always disliked the scarf. But as I tie it around my throat, I wonder if it wasn't her attempt to splash some color into this drab district. Sort of like how I use music. Anyway, the scarf will work well enough to obscure the bruise from the eyes of the Capitol staff for the short interval that I'll be waiting.

Sufficiently covered, I run downstairs to wait in the hall for the arrival of the Victory Tour crew. Hanna unintentionally finds me sitting in a chair, half obscured by the grandfather clock. I'm not ready to make peace. And she doesn't say anything about the groceries. So I guess she dealt with Mrs. Mellark, after all. I disappear behind my frosty mantle and she gives a jaundiced sneer at the scarf before disappearing into the kitchen again.

When they finally arrive, Katniss has just enough time to give me a hug before she's frogmarched up the stairs. Peeta gives me a wave, but he doesn't look very triumphant for someone who's engaged to the girl he's been in love with since the age of five. Maybe they're both tired after a grueling trip. Everyone disappears to the third floor, leaving me at the bottom of the stairs without being able to get in a word.

I feel my opportunity slipping away. Clinging to the banister, I try to decide if I'm brave enough to interrupt their preparations or if I should camp out in my mother's doorway to wait for someone to come out of their designated rooms. None of the rooms upstairs, besides my parents', have their own bathrooms. So surely someone will have to come out sometime.

As luck would have it, I catch Peeta's designer in the hallway when I reach the third floor. Portia, I believe, is her name.

I feel embarrassed to ask, but she looks at the bruise like it's an unremarkable part of the experience in the Capitol. It might be. But in a small district where everyone has known everyone else's families for generations, and all the stories that go with that familiarity, it has a greater impact.

"I have just the thing," she says. "Wait here."

Portia disappears into the guest room designated for Peeta. I catch a glimpse of him as someone helps him slip a special dress boot onto his prosthetic leg. She returns shortly with a handful of little plastic canisters the width of silver dollars and a few other cosmetic sticks and sample size tubes.

I stare at the pile of items in my cupped hands in a bewildered fashion, feeling baffled like I do when I watch Hanna cook. The housekeeper just grabs bottles of various herbs and knows what to throw into a pot, using her own hands as a measure while I grow increasingly lost.

It's not just the sheer quantity of makeup…it's also the colors. I have some serious doubts that Portia understood my request. Turning myself green isn't really what I had in mind for making the bruise less conspicuous. Does she want me to paint myself into the curtains, like Peeta can?

Portia takes pity on me and explains how to apply the cosmetic from the canisters with my fingers. I'm given a little lesson on the color wheel, which I've never heard of in school and probably won't ever unless coal starts showing up in different shades. The other tubes and sticks I can apply to the rest of my face so that what I use on the bruise will blend in seamlessly. I thank her, then get out of her hair. For someone from the Capitol whose job it is to truss up children to die, she's kind. Though, come to think of it, maybe that's why.

Back in my room, I lay everything out like a surgeon assembling her tools. In the minute it took to get back to my bedroom, I've already forgotten some of the instructions and feel a little baffled all over again. But I experiment until suddenly the cosmetic does what I want it to.

When my work is done, I stare at my throat in the mirror. I don't know how the layer of pastes and powders worked to erase the bruise, but they did. Someone would really have to look to notice the discoloration.

Now if only the memory would cover up so easily. It burns in the back of my brain. Last night I could hardly sleep, thinking of all the things I could have said and done differently to take control of the situation. Or to have avoided it completely. Running the scenario over and over until I finally fell into exhausted blankness.

A glance at the brass alarm clock by my bed tells me that it's still a little early to fully dress, but I've run out of things to help fill the time. Or to distract me from returning to useless scenarios. I still feel full of ants, made worse as the banquet draws nearer.

It's part dread, part anticipation. To be honest, I couldn't tell you which feeling pertains to Cole or…the cousin. I try preparing a short speech that expresses rapid fire gratitude. But as soon as a sentence comes to mind, it skitters away like chaff in the wind. I'm just too nervous. And I also realize that any speeches made to cousins will have to be said in front of Cole. Ugh.

On the bright side, the particular cousin will likely stalk away again before I can get a word in. I decide to take extra care with dressing so that while he ignores my existence from across the room I can look great while it's happening.

Way to recycle a bad idea.

I won't wear white.

In the closet, the wire hangers screech softly as I nudge aside the garments on either side of the dress I've been saving for this evening. The red velvet one with a scoop neckline that Dad won't love and a pleated a-line skirt that I adore. The hemline swishes delightfully just below my knees. It practically begs to be danced in. Even if it's only with Cole. This dress enjoys pleasure for pleasure's sake. I'm almost happy as I step into it and feel the fabric smooth upward as I pull the straps over my shoulders and adjust the bodice. The zipper's a little tricky with the low back, but I manage. I found a pair of my mother's heels that work well with the dress and, double points, will help erase some of my disadvantage in height.

I debate if I should tie my hair back or leave it down completely. My loose curls have cooperated today, allowing me to coax them into softly-defined spirals. So I decide to leave them down and unadorned.

I'm just touching up the spot on my neck one more time when Dad knocks on my door and lets himself in. Through the mirror I notice he's donned his formal dinner jacket. He hasn't worn it in ages, but it fits perfectly. All the pacing he does at the office has paid off. The suit gives him a regal aspect. He looks less fatigued and more venerable. Handsome, even. I can sort of see the boy who used to spend too much money on salt water taffy at the sweet shop back in the day because my mother worked the counter.

I twist around in my chair, leaning over the back. "Wow, Dad," I can't help saying, despite the new strain between us. "Look at you!"

His ears turn pink. But he looks shyly pleased. "I've just heard that the musicians have arrived. I'd thought you'd like to know in case you hadn't dressed yet and wanted to listen to them warm up." Then he pauses, looking at my dress. "Oh."

Oh? I glance down at myself. "Is something the matter?"

"No. Not exactly." Dad scratches the top of his head. "I thought you'd wear the white dress tonight. Cole said you looked very nice in it last summer, after I asked him."

After Dad asked him? The not so subtle hint lingers in the space between us. I grit my teeth behind a smile.

"I'll change."

As Dad disappears into the hallway, the last of my patience snaps. I'll never get a chance to wear this dress for anyone now, thanks to Cole. Thanks to Dad. Thanks to Hanna. Thanks to Niels.

I settle on Hanna as the easiest target for my ire. I can't touch Niels. Dad never would have noticed the bruise without her tongue wagging. And he wouldn't have felt the need to run interference in my so-called love life. So really she's to blame for Cole and his preferences. There's a pair of boots in the mud room that I use when Katniss and I go to the woods. They're covered in soot from passing through the Seam and mud from the forest. I swear on every broken street lamp in the district that I'm going to wear those boots in the house the next time Hanna mops the floors.

I remove the red dress, returning it to its hanger along with any personal enjoyment I'd taken in dressing earlier. Then I bring out the white dress from the farthest corner of the closet where it's been banished until now. The pink ribbon I wore with it drapes limply from the hook. It is a beautiful dress. And I did look nice in it. But it meant more than that.

White is a safe color to choose on reaping day. It suggests solidarity. With Peacekeepers. With Snow. The System. The drape of the skirt conjures images of white rose petals. It says, don't pause over me when your eyes scan the crowd of children. I am one of you. There are no dissidents here.

The candy pink ribbon, on the other hand, says, I remember what you did to my aunt. She wasn't killed by another child. You did it. With a muttation. The Capitol's cruel tool. I won't forget.

And the gold pin whispers, one day when there's nothing left to take, we will come for you. Then, just watch as we fall upon the gears and upon the wheels….

And now I am angry. Because that's what this outfit used to mean. Now the garment only reminds me of a frosty rebuke to a tone-deaf rich girl and the moment the Capitol took my only real friend besides Darius. And I didn't want those reminders tonight. On top of everything.

But I dress in it. Despite the unsuitably of white for the season. Despite my increasing resentment. Despite everything.

Once my garments are swapped out, I return to the dressing table. I'll need a ribbon or something to embellish the outfit, because the white feels simple and washed out compared to the red velvet. And the pink sash feels childish. The sash I can't help. It's attached. I refuse to wear the pink ribbon in my hair tonight, however. I dig in a drawer and find a gold one. It's no replacement for the pin, but it works. It'll show solidarity with Katniss. A small gesture, maybe, but that seems to be my speed.

Then I open the bottom-most drawer of the vanity and reach for an object I haven't used in years. It's squashed under a box of curlers and clips that I also inherited from my grandmother Donner. A soft bristle brush. I glance at myself in the mirror and see blue eyes looking back at me with the resolve to murder.

What I am about to do will be the final act of resistance. Yes, I'll stand up with Cole Binns. Yes, I'll be as pleasant as possible. But I refuse to look nice for him. I'm going to break a basic rule of textured hair: brushing it out dry.

I turn away from the mirror and begin to yank my curls into a single wavy, frizzy mass from the bottom up. The part of me that understands I'm being silly fights with the part of me that wants to spite Cole and my father for forcing this costume change. The spite wins. Maybe not my most shining moment, but it has been a trying two days.

I put the brush down and inspect my work. My hair's too well conditioned to form a proper haystack. But the static charge, such as it is, could still probably set the Hob alight.

As the static settles, I hear another knock and then the creak of the door on its hinges. Through the mirror, I see Katniss enter my bedroom wearing a divine silver dress that makes her appear elegant and at least twenty years old. Although silver seems a bit staid for the girl they set on fire for the parade, she's still beautiful in an oblivious sort of way.

Katniss looks pale beneath the makeup, like something's shaken her. But then, I think she always looks a little shaken when her designer and prep team dress her up out of her usual hunting gear. Not shaken enough to be noticed by most people, but I've spent eleven years sitting next to her in school, growing familiar with her fifty shades of scowl.

So maybe it's nothing out of the ordinary. At some point on the tour, she's been waxed and buffed and slathered in cosmetic and creams. It's almost unreal, the transformation. But they've taken her beauty and enhanced it. Not to the extend that she's got whiskers coming out of her cheeks, but not a beauty bred in District Twelve either. Everyone's too beat down to look illuminated from within. But she is. So I almost expect to hear an accent when she says hello.

I smile at her. "Look at you. Like you came right off the streets of the Capitol."

Then I bite the inside of my cheeks wondering if that will offend her…and half expect her cousin to jump out of somewhere to say something snide.

But Katniss steps in closer. I see my aunt's pin when she reaches to touch it. After all its been through, the heirloom seems like a stranger.

"Even my pin now," she agrees. "Mockingjays are all the rage in the Capitol, thanks to you."

I stop myself from flinching. What?

I swallow and turn back to my reflection. Do I look as stiff and shaken as I feel? Thanks to me, a symbol of the rebellion…all over the Capitol. What does that mean? And is it my work truly…or the efforts of Haymitch's contacts? Or Katniss herself. It's hard to breathe again.

I've been quiet too long.

"Are you sure you don't want it back?" she asks, I think misunderstanding my silence.

I wave my hand in the air, blinking rapidly as I try to collect my scattered wits. "Don't be silly, it was a gift," I assure her, concentrating on tying my hair back and calming the questions her comment have raised.

"Where did you get it anyway?" she asked.

I reach for the spot on my chest where I've pinned it every reaping day since I turned twelve. "It was my aunt's," I tell her woodenly, letting my fingers fall onto my lap. We don't talk about Maysilee, so it feels like the words are getting stuck in my throat. I don't look at Katniss. "But I think it's been in the family a long time."

A very long time. Since the Dark Days. I know this now because of Haymitch.

Now Katniss grows quiet. It's not unusual for us. I'm certainly used to silence. She's working something over in her mind and I'm reeling. So we could both use the pause.

I run my fingers through my shabby frizz, feeling a little regret for the curls now that the damage is done. Maybe I allowed my impulses to run away with me.

"It's a funny choice, a mockingjay," Katniss muses, eventually, like she's dipping her toe into a hot bath to gauge the temperature. "I mean, because of what happened in the rebellion. With the jabberjays backfiring on the Capitol and all."

I feel like ice chips have slipped into my stomach. Perhaps Katniss doesn't know, hasn't been told, that the walls have ears. But right now this conversation requires damage control. Haymitch will kill me if the discussion of the pin as a symbol marks either of us as rebel sympathizers.

On second thought, he won't need to. The Capitol will certainly oblige. There's no way that Snow won't recognize the meaning behind the pin when it's glaring at him from the bosoms of his beloved citizens.

The mockingjay is our symbol. It's like the Law of Three; a concept that I read about in a book I found in some old forgotten boxes in the Justice Building attic labeled BURN. The law teaches that from the marriage of resistance, affirmation, and reconciliation, a new dimension is born. A fourth way. A fourth force. A new will. Something improbable that brings life…as improbable as jabberjays mating with mockingbirds. Dying out. Returning as something new and unintended but very much alive. Potent, even, as anyone who has heard a this songbird will attest. This is the mockingjay. A creature of beauty and song born from the instruments of the surveillance state left to die, but ultimately free to work its will in the world. And now the mockingjays are legion, as we hope to be legion.

And I am squirming. Wondering after all these months why she's curious about the pin's greater significance now. Why today when the house if full of the Capitol? I need to breathe. I need to fix this.

"But mockingjays were never a weapon," I say, searching for something true, but also something safe. To quell the inquiry. To protect both of us. "They're just songbirds." I glance at her. "Right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she replies. Something in her expression remains guarded.

I've silenced her but I have not convinced her.

One moment you're a teenager getting ready for a bad date and the next…you're a rebel with her cover about to be blown. And for the first time I wonder if my gift last summer was too impulsive. I wanted her to have her best chance in the arena. Get Haymitch's attention. Gain sponsors among his allies. To live. Or to have some piece of home and our friendship if she didn't make it out.

Mockingjays are all the rage in the Capitol. Thanks to you. I shudder. That cannot go unnoticed by Snow or his advisors. And if that's the case, then the Capitol's scrutiny of District 12 on the final days of the Tour will be unlike anything.

So, I put the final nail in the coffin of the pin's discussion, saying, "Congratulations on your engagement, by the way."

Katniss stares at me, then murmurs, "Thanks."

It's wooden. It answers all the questions I had yesterday in the Mellark bakery. And I know that nothing's different for her cousin any more now than before the tour. Does he know?

AN: As a fellow wavy, I never understood why Madge would brush her hair. I just imagined it getting bigger and frizzier in that scene. So I'm glad for the opportunity to explain it to myself finally. Because that is the burning question in CF ch. 7.

Thanks for reading!

OCs and medea!verse character names:
"Alyss" or "Alyssum" Everdeen: Katniss's mother
"Bran" Mellark: Peeta's middle brother
Cletus Burdick: distinguished notary public
Cole Binns: An iteration of Geeky_DMHG_Fan's Cole Phillips, resident Gale!foil / Unfortunate Soul
Drunk Peacekeepers: Felix, Gaius, Niels
"Gram" Mellark: Peeta's father
Hammond family: green grocers
Hanna: the Undersees' housekeeper
"Henry" Undersee: Madge's father, district mayor
"Leven" Mellark: Peeta's oldest brother
"Marigold" Undersee: Madge's mother
"Margaret" or "Maggie" Donner: Madge's maternal grandmother
Mrs. Stukley: sweet shop owner
Nero Ashfield: A secretary in Snow's council
Rufus Weidenbach: District Clerk (referenced in Dustland Fairytale)