Disclaimer:
The 'Hunger Games' trilogy and the characters therein are owned by
Suzanne Collins. My compliments and thanks to her for writing the books,
and I admit to using the book background and characters in this story.
Any errors I make by not describing the characters as well and properly
as in the books are mine alone.
[Author's Notes: This story is a sequel to 'Finding comfort in the baker's son' and picks up right where the previous one ended; I strongly recommend to read the first part before you start here. Ryan (Rye) Mellark, oldest brother of Peeta, and his fiancée Primrose (Prim) Everdeen, younger sister of Katniss, watch the end of the 75th Hunger Games from home and hear about the 'Voice of the mockingjay'. Something odd is going on, and Panem is going to change.
Same as in the previous story, the events are told from Rye's point of view only, so that Peeta and Katniss are in the background, whereas I focus on Rye and in particular his relation to Prim. Changing times may provide interesting opportunities for them, and Prim grows from a little girl who badly needs somebody for comfort to a young woman who has her own very specific plan, together with her love.
Whereas Suzanne Collins' trilogy focuses mostly on Katniss and Peeta and the events away from District Twelve, this story is mostly about District Twelve and what is happening there, and the story extends to the time after the rebellion, too. Some events are identical or at least similar to books and movies, and some are very different.
I will try to keep each chapter between about 3000 and 6000 words, and I hope that I will manage a biweekly update for the time being, at least. I am writing other stories as well, and there is real life, too.]
Chapter 1: The voice of the mockingjay
In the arena of the 75th Hunger Games – just one day prior to present time:
A small but thick cloud approached the tree, indicating that the lighting was imminent, when Katniss pulled back the string and released her arrow, heading upwards. A dozen meters or so above the ground the arrow seemed to hit something, flashed, and went ahead, although much slower than before. At the same time, the lightning came, struck the tree, and continued along the wire. The cameras clearly showed flashed traveling along the wire and disappearing somewhere, until suddenly there were more bright flashes and a series of explosions. Katniss dropped to the ground, and we were not sure if she had been hit again. Peeta was at her side, and she pointed upwards.
The camera moved as well, showing the sky above the arena, but it looked different than before. All of the time there had been some flickering, caused by the force field around the arena, but in this part, at least, it was gone. Somehow Katniss had managed to have the energy from the lightning hit the force field and destroy at least a part of it.
"Look, a hovercraft" Peeta called out.
"Oh, who has died now?" Katniss asked.
"I do not know" her young husband replied.
"Wait, this is not a hovercraft!" Wheat said in the bakery.
And indeed, the flying object we could now see approaching was not a hovercraft at all. It was larger, much larger, with a cylindrical body tapering off at both ends, and it reminded me of…
"Rye, this looks like the one we saw some time ago from our meadow!" Prim shouted.
At this moment, the screen went dark for a moment, and then one of the gamemakers was shown at a desk, announcing that they had technical difficulties in transmitting from the arena.
One day later, just a few minutes before present time:
The same announcer as on the day before was shown again. He started to say:
"Good morning everybody, in the Capitol and the districts. Unfortunately, the technical difficulties in the arena are ongoing, and we still do not have visual coverage back; we apologize for that and will try to restore it as soon as we can. However, the actions of the tributes from the day before showed clear indications of rebelling against Panem, and thus..."
At that time the transmission was interrupted again. The screen flickered a few times, and we assumed that we'd be cut off once again, but suddenly a different desk was shown. A female person was sitting there, dressed in a kind of uniform unknown to us. There was a large flag with a big mockingjay on it shown in the background, and the number '13' was displayed in a corner of the screen. After a few moments of silence the lady spoke:
"Good morning Panem; this is the voice of the mockingjay."
At home in the bakery living room, we were almost like stunned for a moment. What was that? The 'voice of the mockingjay'? I looked around, but none of the others, neither my father, nor my brother Wheat, my girlfriend and fiancée Primrose or her mother Mable Everdeen could provide an answer.
The 75th Hunger Games, with the tributes selected from the pool of previous victors only as a special challenge for the 3rd Quarter Quell, had ended prematurely when Katniss had shot an arrow through the arena border, with a wire connected to a tree which was struck by lightning. Some kind of flash and explosion had happened, apparently dealing some damage to the structure, and we had briefly seen a strange huge airship, larger and very different from the normal hovercraft. Right at this time the transmission had been interrupted. The Capitol announcer had claimed technical issues, but Mayor Undersee had told me later on that it had been a deliberate cut, presumably to not show something we should not see. The tribute's fate was unknown to us, and naturally we were very worried.
Looking back at the screen, I saw that the environment did not look like a Capitol studio at all, and the speaker was dressed in a different way, too.
The announcer repeated, obviously aware of the fact that this needed to repeated and explained:
"This is the voice of the mockingjay, speaking for all of us who are not willing to accept the tyranny and the violent rule of President Snow and his cronies any longer. The rebellion has started, and we are going to be successful this time!"
Rebellion, really? There had been some indications of that for some time, and as part of my job working for Mayor Undersee I had learned about some shortages in deliveries, but there had been no clear sign for a rebellion at least in our district. Rumors of all kinds had been around, of course, but we had lacked any real information. So, some of the rumors had indeed been true? In the bakery, we all looked at each other, and many questions popped up in our mind. Those were obviously anticipated, and the announcement went on:
"Most of you in the districts will have many questions, and for now I will only be able to address a few of them. First of all, I am speaking from District Thirteen."
The announcer paused, probably assuming that everybody was shocked from hearing that.
"District Thirteen? But that district was destroyed!" Mabel Everdeen claimed.
Dad nodded: "That's what I thought, too."
We had all learned at school that there were twelve districts and the Capitol. There had indeed been a thirteenth district earlier, before and during the first rebellion, but it had been destroyed, and they had occasionally shown footage from the area, always showing an area of devastation which was obviously not suitable for habitation any longer. Had that all been a lie? Or was the speaker lying to us now?
The voice continued:
"Contrary to common believe, our district was never destroyed. Yes, there was lots of damage to the ground in the first rebellion, but we had prepared an extensive underground structure which we used to hide in, and we're back to fight and win now, together with many friends in other districts and with the help of allies. There will be plenty of time later to address all of the many question I am sure everybody has, but there is something urgent to take care of right now. The final rebellion has started, and President Snow is of course aware of it, even though he may officially deny it. We have supporters in all of the districts and even in the Capitol itself, and some districts have already shown their support for us in public. Unfortunately, Snow is going to retaliate, as hard as he can, and we need to do what we can to stop him in order so save as many innocent lives as possible. District Twelve is special: There has been no open sign of rebellion there, but the act of destroying the arena force field by Katniss is similar to rebellion in Snow's eyes, similar to the way Katniss and Peeta won the previous Games together. We are certain that the role of the 'star crossed lovers' is coming to an end, at least in Snow's eyes."
We realized that this implied being potential targets for President Snow, maybe for more than 'only' killing a few individual people, and Dad sighed. Life had been hard enough for our two very own victors. Sure, they had managed to win the previous games together, but their relationship had not developed like it should have. At the end of the previous games, the 74th Hunger Games, they had threatened to commit suicide together with nightlock berries, and the gamemakers had been forced to allow both of them to win, as they had announced before as an option anyway. President Snow, though, had seen that as a sign of rebellion, and he had dictated further events, up to and including Peeta and Katniss getting married just a few days prior to the start of the 75th Hunger Games. Not only that, but obviously their wedding night had been recorded by hidden cameras, and copies of the tape had been sold to wealthy Capitol citizens.
Katniss and Peeta and previous victors from the other districts had been competing against each other in the arena of the 75th Hunger Games, and the latest we had seen on the screens had been very confusing. While the two and some allies had survived so far, we were cut off from any updates, and it was extremely unusual to lose game coverage close to the end.
I still shuddered when thinking about my brother and Prim՚s sister and everything they had to go through already and were maybe going through at this time. Inside, I was happy to be here in District Twelve rather than anywhere else and about my own relationship with my very own fiancée, Primrose Everdeen. I had first met Prim when she had been only five years old. She had been pushed onto the maglev tracks in our station by some kids having an argument, and I had saved her from being maimed by the incoming train. Despite her being a Seam citizen and me being a Townie, we had liked each other right from the start and we had developed a close friendship. Prim had soon shown a crush on me, and she had decided that she was going to marry me as soon as possible; all of a sudden I had found myself with a preteen girlfriend, almost ten years my junior. Our relationship had been sanctioned by her parents right from the start, and we had experienced many good times together. Recently, with herself in puberty and 13 years old, things had started to get a little more heated from time to time, but we strictly followed the 'keep your hands above the waist' rule. We had seen a pregnant teenager getting her belly cut open during one of the earlier games, and there was no way I'd risk getting Prim knocked up. Besides, she and her mother were healers, and if I overstepped my limits, I might learn about some not so very nice effects of special medical herbs the hard way. My pretty fiancée and I had promised to each other to not get intimate before marriage.
We were both totally in love with each other, and herself sitting on my lap when we ate and ourselves showing many public signs of affection was totally normal. On most weekends, Prim spent a night or two with me in my bed, and almost always we fell asleep and woke up with our arms tightly wrapped around each other. I could consider myself lucky indeed.
The announcement continued, with the background changing to one of those huge flying objects we had seen above the arena just before the transmission had been interrupted:
"What you can see behind me is called a 'Zeppelin'. It was not invented by us and we do not own it. Rather, a few of those airships came over the ocean some time ago, from supporters we have in Europe. They do not have planes or hovercraft able to cover the huge distance across the ocean, and airplanes might not have found a suitable area to land on anyway, but those airships can cover the long distances well, although quite slowly, and they do not require sophisticated landing fields. Our allies have helped us in preparing the rebellion, and at least one of those zeppelins will be over each friendly district soon. When you see it, please aid the people onboard as much as you can, as they will assist you. They are armed and will attempt to intercept hovercraft from the Capitol which are going to attack the districts. The Capitol can see this transmission, too, of course, so that I will not say how exactly they can fight."
Prim jumped up and down when she heard that: "Yes! I knew that we saw that before!"
I looked at her and agreed: "Yes, indeed, I think that you are right about that!"
We were both thinking back to that day on the meadow when we had seen a large flying object in the distance. At that time, we had not known what it was, and I had fantasized about unknown flying objects with aliens on board. Prim and I spent a lot of time on 'our' meadow, and it was nice to have a picnic out there, too. Sometimes in summer we stayed there for the night, and snuggling under the sky was real nice. We had been sleeping together occasionally since she had been ten; literally sleeping of course only. This had started when we had both been sick and had taken care of each other. Recently my Dad had been a little bit concerned about self control, but this was still something we did, usually on the weekends, and I had long ago realized that waking up with my wonderful little girlfriend very close to me – Prim was still on the small and petite side – was something I immensely enjoyed.
By now, we were almost like one family rather than two. Not only was Katniss, Primrose's older sister, married to Peeta and I was engaged to Primrose, but also our single parents, her widowed mother and my divorced father, were together now – again, after Dad had favored Mabel already in his youth, until she had opted to marry a miner instead.
On the screen, the announcer explained a few more details, but soon the show was over and the view switched back to the Capitol studio, with some flickering. An apparently very nervous Capitol crony tried to tell us that the previous transmission had been entirely fictional and everybody should forget about it. Of course President Snow had everything under control; there was no such thing as a rebellion, and we should just do our normal work. However, there was no further explanation, and there was no statement about the arena and the tributes at all. That was strange, but maybe we would learn about that later.
For now, all we could do was to wait and see what was going to happen, I thought. Prim turned around on my lap and asked me:
"Rye, what's going to happen now? Was this really a fake?"
"I do not think so, my love. But whatever happens, there is not much we can do here, I guess."
"I am really worried about Katniss and Peeta!"
"Yes, and so am I. Let's hope that there are more messages coming soon."
My assumption that there was not much what we could do here turned out to be wrong, and I would learn about that only minutes later.
[Author's Notes: This first chapter has a little bit of looking back to explain some issues, specifically those related to Rye and Prim. I strongly suggest to read the other story - 'Finding comfort in the baker's son' - first, though.]
