I run my fingers through what is left of Johanna's hair, the soft and gorgeous locks that reached the middle of her back now nothing more than tresses of hair about three inches long, and that's at the top of her head where she still has hair. The revelation that we were going to be remade to "Beauty Base Zero" prompted her to have a bit of a fit and chop most of it off last night, which in turn made me fall into a fit of giggles. I don't really giggle, so she couldn't help but grin when I started to and then couldn't stop. The heat that rose through my body when she whispered in my ear, "I live to entertain you, brainless," oh I can't even describe how it made me feel. Powerful, weak-kneed, beautiful, awkward, clumsy, self-assured, it all just ran together and molded into something else in my chest, something that I'm still not used to feeling. Oh the things that Johanna, my Jojo, can do to me with but a few simple words... And she knows it. She knows that she has this power over me, and she does her best to hide the fact that I can do it to her too. I know though. I know I can, I know that if I say the right things in the right way, I can make my valkyrie of a girlfriend just melt into putty in my hands.
She purrs at the way my fingers feel on her head and pushes back into me, even that tiny movement sloshing the warm water around us and threatening to spill it over onto the floor. I sigh contentedly and nuzzle into the side of her neck, the finally silky remains of my own hair tickling her skin. We both lost a fair amount, but at least I still have hair down to my shoulders. It's something, and Fulvia is sure she can work with it. Are we excited to be made into Mockingjay-plus-lover? No, not really, but it's a way to serve, to help further this rebellion and bring down Snow. That's our goal, and that's what we're striving for. To that end, we're taking a bath so that we can be the prettiest public faces of the rebellion that we can be, though we are both also eager to get to work on training to be soldiers in the eventual assault on the Capitol. We both agreed last night while we were taking our shower that we would train as much as we can for this, that we would only trade our drill slot for hunting twice a week. The rest of the time we're here? We are either going to be filming propos(oh dear god am I not looking forward to that), or we will be running, crawling, brawling, and shooting our way to being better than the Peacekeepers.
After another twenty minutes in the water, we sigh as one and start to shift so we can get out. She turns to me and kisses me just like she always does, a fierce and possessive attack on my lips that lights a fire just under my ribs and makes me believe that if I tried hard enough, I could fly. The cascade of water that washes off of her as she stands draws my eyes along her willowy and steely body, her scars just as wondrous as the last hundred times I've seen them. The angry red line that traces from halfway along the left side of her neck to somewhere around the middle of her sternum, just barely missing the small mound of her breast. The three parallel gashes just over the ripple of her abs, a remnant of some wood beast before the Quell. Several sets of claw marks along her arms from the berserker monkey things in the arena, dotting her skin in a rather alluring pattern. A shiny crescent just under her right knee from not quite making it out from under a branch she had cleaved from the tree it grew on. A dozen other marks, with a dozen other stories, all of them her perfect imperfections. All of them the things that make her the woman I claim as my own.
I'm just managing to stand up myself when my prep team bustles in without knocking. Octavia sees us both on our feet and glistening, still steaming water running down our naked flesh in entrancing prismatic droplets, and squeaks in shock. She looks so very different from the last time we met, her once plump frame now a little loose, too much weight lost too quickly. Her natural auburn hair makes the green of her skin look almost healthy, though darker than I am used to. Flavius shooes her in, his once bouncy orange curls now a crisp black and flat on his head. He keeps her moving, trying to make it so that Venia can get in and work her magic, always the most collected of the three of them. She snatches a towel from Octavia and quietly scolds her, "Katniss is not going to hurt us, dear. She didn't even know we were here. Things will be better now." Then she is in front of us, efficiently wrapping a soft towel around Johanna with a faint smile on her face that lights up her striking gold tattoos as she glances at me. I can see a kind of approval in her eyes, though I think it is less about who I chose to be with for the rest of my life and more that I made a choice at all. Once she has covered us both for the sake of a modesty that only the Capitol can afford, she bustles us back into the quarters we were finally issued after I announced I'd be the Mockingjay, a block directly opposite of the one that my mother and sister share.
Johanna and I look at each other, knowing and dreading what is about to occur. For the next hour, we are subjected to a full body wax, several moisturizing treatments, a grand total of three rinses in the tub, and finally dressed in our gray uniform and made up with natural looks. Though we knew this was coming, it is still every bit as much of a living hell as every other time we were remade, which doesn't make it any better. They do the best that they can to smooth out our blemishes so that they can burn, cut, and otherwise maim us in a more attractive way, but they hit a rather nasty snag late in the game that satisfies our mutual need to be uncooperative. The cut that Finnick made when he dug out my tracker, as well as the butcher job Johanna did on her own arm, healed in a way such that we both have rough scars that cover a large expanse of the inside of our forearms. By this point, Fulvia has entered the fray and is determinedly consulting with Plutarch about what is to be done since the uniform Cinna made for me ends just above the elbow, as do the uniforms of the District Thirteen soldiers. In the end, they admit defeat and decide that they will simply use armbands or bandages to hide what they don't want to show.
As a group, we traipse down to the dining hall, Plutarch and Fulvia doing their best to keep the prep team moving and assured. Because there isn't much we can do to help, Johanna and I are out in front and walking hand in hand. I can't help feeling a fulfillment of a higher purpose, like I've done something that I was always meant to do though had no notion it needed done. With our steps synced up, I lean my head on her shoulder and enjoy the bouncing sway of our movements, my thoughts divided between how much I love this woman and the job that we are about to undertake. I don't hear what the Capitolites are saying, but I do see what happens when we walk into the room. At first, there is a hush from the citizens there, made more pointed and poignant by the glare of open revulsion and hatred coming from Gale and a few others that he has managed to convert to his way of thinking. Then the murmurs begin, whispered words of disbelief and awe that we agreed to be the face of the revolution, exclamations of how beautiful one or both of us is(how they hadn't noticed that Johanna is a knock out, I don't know), and reverent greetings given to us. The anger from Team Gale(as we decided to call them right around then) grew more noticable, and as one they stood and dumped their trays, stalking out as a pack. The prep team is treated kindly now in light of their association with the Mockingjay, and the meal goes as smoothly as possible. A few children even crowd around them and ask questions about their cosmetic enhancements, prompting them to feel at least a bit included, small smiles lighting their faces.
Lunch comes to an end and we split up, Johanna and I going down to Special Defense to get my armor and our weapons for the propo, the Capitolites going to one of the various different empty bays to set up the stage and the cameras. As my lumberjack and I step into the elevator, a voice calls out from behind us to hold the door. I almost refuse just because I recognize the voice, but I decide to give him one last chance and turn to hold the door for Gale.
The anger isn't gone from his face, but I can tell that he is at least trying to play nice. I can also see in the set of his features that he is still convinced that this is just a phase, and he isn't sorry for the things he's said or the way he's done his best to alienate Johanna. I glare at him, holding one arm to the side to keep Johanna back though to be fair, I'm not sure she'll get to him before I do. We ride in silence for several minutes before he finally says, "You're still angry." I bite out my reply in clipped syllables, "And you're still not sorry, are you?" The look he gives me makes my blood boil with how... clinical it is. "I stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" Again, I spit my reply into his face, "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion."
At that, he turns to me and grabs my arms in his large hands. I wave Johanna off with a tiny movement of my hand, sure that he's not going to hurt me and also sure that I'm about to hurt him for what he hasn't said. His gray eyes stare into mine for several long moments, and when he speaks, it's a soft tone I haven't heard in a long time. "Katniss, I know you, the real you. This isn't you. You're hurting, I understand that, and I can forgive you for this, all of it. I just know that you don't do this, you aren't some sick sappho, so when you finally come to your senses, I'll be waiting for you. Just don't take too long, okay? I may not like it, but it has feelings too, and if you crush them, it's going to be very upset. We watched its games, you know what it can do."
He takes a breath to continue what I'm sure he thinks is a rousing speech of patience and long-suffering heroism, but I've heard enough. He is never going to change, so I fulfill my last promise to him. My knee snaps up into his groin, strong legs crossing his eyes with the impact before I smash my forehead into the bridge of his broken nose. The breath he just took wheezes out as he curls up and slowly sinks to the floor, and my left hand finds a grip on his shirt. I start to punch him, again and again and again, the skin of my knuckles tearing and bleeding more freely with each strike even as bruises blossom on his chiseled face. I hear the first crack of breaking bone and the arch under his eye collapses. I hear two more seconds later, and in a spurt of blood he spits out a tooth from a jaw that doesn't seem stable anymore. Johanna's hands wrap around my wrist, tugging me away from him and upsetting my balance so that I have to let go of him or fall over. Without me to hold him up, he tumbles to the ground like a loose sack of potatoes.
She coos into my hair, striving to calm me down even as she glares down at the unconscious form of the man who was once my best friend, tears of anger and hurt leaking from her clear sunny amber eyes. She feels betrayed she tells me, betrayed because she has done nothing but treat him with respect while he has done nothing but snub her and talk to her like she isn't even a person. She has tried to be kind, to be understanding in the hopes that he would do the same, but he never has and now it is too late for him to change. I beat him like I told him I would if he spoke to her or about her that way again, and even as she calms me I spit out one last epithet. "You can lay there and bleed, Gale. I told you what would happen if you spoke about the woman I love the way you just did, and you must not have believed me. Believe me now, you stupid cocksucker?" I know I shouldn't do it, but I do anyway. I'm just so angry, so upset with Gale Hawthorne, that I can't keep myself from branding him with one of the few things I know will hurt his pride just as much as the beating he just took. I see the hurt in his eyes as he writhes on the floor, the disbelief that I would goad him with an intimation that he has engaged in the same acts he hates so much.
The doors open and I storm out, dragging my lumberjack with me as I go. Special Defense is down almost as far as the dungeons we found my prep team in, a veritable beehive of activity and computers. We ask for Beetee, our tormented genius, and we are directed through the maze until we reach a plate glass window. On the other side is the first beautiful thing we've seen here in our exile, a replica of a sunny open meadow filled with golden flowers and a lone tree. A door slides open soundlessly, almost seeming to melt into existence in the center of the clear wall, and we are ushered through. Once inside, I can see that there is life all around, tiny little birds with breasts so red they seem to be bleeding as they flit too and fro, forwards and backwards and side to side, hovering in front of the flowers. We find Beetee in a wheelchair, a smile on his face as the imitation sunlight hits his upturned face. He doesn't open his eyes, but he does hold up his hand to motion us to silence. We stand with him, relaxing bit by bit the longer we are in this sanctuary. When he speaks, his voice is soft and sounds hardly used. "Aren't they magnificent? Thirteen has been studying their aerodynamics for years. Forward and backward flight, and speeds up to sixty miles per hour! If only I could build you wings like these, Katniss!"
I chuckle and reach out to touch his shoulder, my voice almost as soft as his own, "I don't think I could manage them, Volts. Thanks for the thought though. Plutarch said you have something for me?" He chuckles and presses his hand to a control panel on the chair, making it move for him. He explains that he actually can walk again, though he tires easily and quickly, so the chair is just simpler. We chat for a few minutes, Johanna and I telling him how we're adapting to life here and all three of us sharing a dark laugh when we see two soldiers struggling to carry Gale out of the elevator still. Then he looks up at us, apprehension on his face as he asks about Finnick. The mood sours quite a bit, but we tell him the same thing we told everyone else, that we heard the real message under what he was saying. Beetee assures us that he heard it too, and he's going to back us up when we say that Finnick, our Triton, is still on our side and fighting any way he can. Beetee even says he's working on a new trident for him. We look up at that and see block lettering overhead reading SPECIAL WEAPONRY, four guards around the door. Inside, they check the schedules on our arms, scan our retinal signatures, take our fingerprints, our DNA, do voice recognition, and run us through metal detectors. When we finally check out, they let us through and we see why security is so tight.
The walls are filled with just about every weapon imaginable, rifles, explosives, launchers, even motorcycles with mounted guns and sleek lines. Johanna and I look at each other, wondering how a simple bow and arrow can fit in amongst all of these high tech monstrosities, then we are shown a rack of simpler weapons. There are several bows of various different designs, including one with so many scopes and gadgets that I'm fairly certain I couldn't even use it if I wanted to. They also have vests lined with knives, belts with loops for thrown weapons, and melee weapons that are surprisingly intimidating in their simple designs. He encourages us to play with them while he goes and picks up a couple things, so she and I take hold of several knives each and start throwing them at the targets. We don't even try, but we end up hitting the same bullseyes side by side, bright grins on our faces. We glory in the simple joy of being so in tune that we can throw in tandem and not miss or interfere with each other. After several minutes, Beetee returns, two sleek cases laid across his lap. The first one he thrusts at me, the other at Johanna. "You first," he says with a grin, pointing at me.
I lay the case down and undo the latches, the top sliding open on silent hinges to reveal what's inside. On the red velvet interior lies a sleek black bow, nearly five feet long and beautiful. The etching and design work seem to suggest the wings of a bird, stretching forth and seeking the heavens. When I touch it, voicing a soft cry of pleasure, I feel something just under my palm that I have to make sure I'm not imagining. For several seconds, I sit there with the bow in my hands, a faint hum running up my arms, and just look at him in wonder. "What's it doing?" He smiles at me and tells me that it's saying hello, that it recognizes my voice. He tells me about what he did, how he made the bow special because he felt it would be a waste to make it solely based on looks. He tells me that the arrows are the real weapons, but without the bow to react to they are only arrows. He points me to a range and bids me to test them, and I can't help but be amazed as the arrows light dummies on fire or blow them to pieces. Beetee turns to Johanna with a satisfied look on his face and says, "Now you."
She opens her own case, the hinges silent as mine. Her eyes grow wide and she pulls out two axes, a matched pair that at first looks like it was made to look like leaves, but upon closer inspection matches my bow. Feathers. She laughs in delight, gasping when they come alive in her hands. I read the joy on her face and nod her towards the dummies, curious about what her axes will do and wanting to see the warrior woman I fell in love with. She pauses for a moment, then springs forward unable to contain her enthusiasm anymore. My Johanna becomes a whirling dervish of metal and sinew, pieces of the dummies flying off and falling to the floor smoking. When there are no more targets left for her, she stops and stares at me, a manic grin on her face and a light on her face that ignites a heat low in my body. I can see the edges of her axes are glowing, and I can hear the hum from here as she strides toward me. She drops them to the ground and grabs my face in her hands, demanding that I kiss her with everything that I am, and I oblige. The moment stretches on until we don't know if it is seconds, days, or decades, and when we break apart we can see that Beetee is blushing slightly and looking away with a smile on his face. Clearing his throat, he points behind us at the far wall, and we see that there is one last surprise: two suits of Mockingjay armor, one a bit taller than the other and shaped... for Johanna. Cinna has done it again, given me his approval and his love with a gift.
We are in a trance as we walk to the suits, stroking them for a moment before stripping down to our underclothes only and quickly slipping into the armor he made for us. Johanna slides her axes into the sheathes on her back, and I place a quiver of regular arrows on my back along with my new bow. We finish our prep and thank Beetee one more time, then head off to find our team again to get finished. After we find our way out, the trek back to the soundstage is easy and straightforward, and we can sit with relative ease as they put the last touches on us, including bloody bandages that cover the extraction scars on our arms. They coach us as they work, and when they finally finish, we look at each other and stare. Johanna looks haunting, and I can see by the look on her face that she thinks the same of me. We step into view of the cameras, and when we see the images on the screen, we are confronted with two women who look like they just stepped out of an active war zone. They are larger than life and look as though the fires at their feet have no more effect on them than the wind in their hair. We look like the women we are supposed to be, the Sirens of the Wood. In that moment, we are Furies, and we are as beautiful and terrible as dancing flames.
A/N: So! Here they are, our beloved Mockingjays. I had this idea while I was on vacation this week, so I had to write it. I also felt that I needed to give Jojo something special, like the bow that Katniss was given. So yay, here we are. All done with this chapter. ^_^