When I returned from the Hunger Games, Peeta and I dual victors, you had changed. You'd been my little sister for so long, and then suddenly, you weren't. Of course, you were still my sister, but you had grown up. No longer were you the same girl who joined the throng of twelve-year-olds in the Reaping, her blouse coming untucked from her skirt - like a little duck. You had been selected in a lottery with a fate that was almost certainly death - and now your sister, who you had watched take your place was coming home - her Game wounds healed by Capitol high tech wizardry, but her internal scars still fresh. Now you were becoming a skilled healer, following in Mother's footsteps, but your remedies couldn't quite soothe the memories that reared their heads at the worst times nor the nightmares that so often made a thorough night's sleep an impossibility.
But I was still glad to see you. We moved into an absurdly large house in the Victor's Village with Mother, though Haymitch was no one's idea of a congenial neighbor. Buttercup came, too, though he seemed ill at ease in such luxurious accommodations, still seemed to prefer hunting field mice to curling up on the hearth. I knew how he felt. Though I was supposed to be developing a "talent," with which to occupy my ample leisure time, I found myself regularly heading for the woods to hunt, even though we no longer needed fresh game to survive. Still, Gale's family depended on me, and it was a way to thank the Hawthornes for helping you and Mother while I was away.
At first, there were things I kept from you, falling back into old habits, believing that you were still vulnerable, ill-prepared to face the very real consequences for my "stunt" with the nightlock berries in the arena. Our esteemed president, as you know, was far from happy that both Peeta and I survived. In that simple gesture that took less than five minutes, we managed to make fools of Snow and his Hunger Games. When I woke up, after it was over, my body had been buffed and polished to a high sheen, but the injury I had done Snow could not be as easily covered up. Now, it was crucial to pretend that Peeta and I were star-crossed lovers. Anything less than a stellar performance, and my loved ones might well suffer. Snow and his Gamesmakers could stand a lot - except the knowledge that they had been outsmarted.
Of course, you had suffered more than anyone should already, but it took me awhile to properly realize that. What had happened at the Reaping and in the arena was horrifying, but had the earlier chapters of our life after Father's death been any less grim? Having been in the Capitol, I now knew firsthand the contrast between the pampered citizens there and the people who struggled here in District 12. In trying to put my victory in the Games in perspective, I'd temporarily forgotten that our lives were hardly danger-free before either of us ever attended a Reaping.
What did I know about being the mouthpiece, the symbol of a revolution? Nothing. But President Snow now saw me as dangerous - like fire, something that could easily flare up at the slightest spark, spread and cause destruction over a great deal of Panem. That was why he visited me at home - what I told Mother was a lie, which I imagine you saw through from the start. The odor of blood and roses lingered as we talked, even though the tea and cookies Mother had served had made an effort to fill the room with a homely aroma. Did he threaten me directly? Not quite, but it was clear afterwards that Gale was now in danger, and others I loved might well suffer, too. Should I step out of line, that is.
If I was fire, Snow was water, or at least he was doing his best to quench the flames of rebellion already being fanned in other Districts. Because of our physical isolation, it took me awhile to piece together what was going on elsewhere. But the signs that a harsher regime was being imposed were already plain where we lived. Other districts, I learned during the Games, had harsher rules and regulations already, as difficult as that may be to picture, but now, the chains were closing in on us, too. Infractions that would have been ignored were now punishable, which Gale found out the day he was whipped by a new Peacekeeper. Which was also the day that I truly realized how skilled you had become at healing.
How I admired your courage and your calm head, as you and Mother prepared the remedy Gale would need for his back to heal. When it comes to helping people in pain, especially those I love, I'm next to useless. My first reaction: to scream at you both to do more, faster, was hardly going to help, so after an application of snow on my own minor wound, I left. But you stayed, and thanks to your dedication, I believe his pain was lessened. And the snowmelt - that was even sweeter balm. How glad I was that it was not the summer - as Mother told me, that would mean flies to shoo away. Madge's medicine was a huge help, too, but you and Mother did the lion's share of healing Gale - and the other hapless souls of District 12 who found themselves on the wrong side of the "law."
My own personal encounter with the new rules came when I attempted to return from hunting, only to discover that the fence had been electrified. My injury returning was not pleasant but bearable, and I managed to bring a few items, including a bag of peppermints, to match my cover story: I'd been to see the Goat Man about getting Lady pregnant. You (and Haymitch, Peeta and Mother) played your impromptu roles flawlessly, convincing our guests that nothing but amiable bickering would be found here. But our relief would be short-lived, for the Quarter Quell Reaping loomed large.
While you were schooled in the lessons of coal by-products, and my prep team prepared several wedding gowns for my upcoming nuptials to Peeta, Snow and the Gamesmakers put their heads together and hatched an even more sinister plan than I'd expected. Since there was no living female tributes to even consider taking my place should my name be drawn, I knew I had no choice: that I was soon to have another hearty helping of Hunger Game horrors.
As Peeta and I trained for the Quell, we had no idea what larger forces were at work. Perhaps a more astute person than me would have picked up on the hints I was given, such as Plutarch Heavensbee pointedly pulling out his watch as we danced - attempting to tell me how the arena would be shaped. I muffed that one, among others. But I did realize early on the importance of allies in the arena, even if I was still unskilled at securing them. As it turned out, a group of Tributes had planned beforehand to make sure I made it out alive. So the Mockingjay eventually came to be in on the full plan, but not until she would wake up from the rescue would it be all explained.
I told you about my first Games ally: Rue from District 11, how much she reminded me of you. Not just her outward fragility but her inner strength. Like you, she was a natural healer who had an eye (and an ear) for the beauty in an otherwise grim world. When she died, I realized afresh just how senseless the Games are. Wreathing her in flowers, and later thanking her family publicly on the Victory Tour were small gestures but all I could do at the time.
It was too late for Rue, but as I realized after I returned home from the first Games, not too late for the younger generation. Gale's siblings still had a chance to inherit a world less barbaric and more democratic, a Panem where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots would not yawn so wide. A place where the yearly death of children was not considered necessary to keep its citizens docile and cowed.
Nor too late for you, Prim. Or so I believed then.