Katniss Everdeen
Katniss was great at hiding. Her father had taught her that the primary instinct of a hunter wasn't the arrow that left their bow. It was silence. A shapeless shadow crouched behind a tree. Unflinching, rain-soaked eyes fixed at the forest canopy. The patience to wait an hour longer. Statuesque; even if they'd soil themselves. Katniss learned to breathe lower than a whisper. Treaded through dry leaves with barely a snick. Still her mind as though those Grooslings would sooner hear her thoughts and flee, rather than end on their dinner plate.
It was little wonder then, that when her father failed to return from the mines and the harrowing reality of their situation became apparent; Katniss hid. She hardened her chin against the helpless look Prim gave her each night. Stayed silent at the rumbling in her belly. Ignored every instinct to flee or give into despair or weep at the phantom touch of Mr Everdeen's hand to her shoulder. Telling her to breathe easy. Stay strong. When the clutches of starvation passed their family and moved onto other poverty-stricken villagers, Katniss dared breathe a silent thanks to her father. Hiding worked.
It worked too, when Madge's eyes fell upon her. Each time that gentle laughter strummed the part of her heart she'd long camouflage in the face of empty stomachs and a broken mother. She mastered the art of blending into the classroom's walls. Feet and arms crossed while girls chattered around her and boys horseplayed and Madge somehow always had to keep looking over. She would've glared back. Feigned that narrow-eyed stare some feral dogs threw when they're backed against a tree. But the deepest part of Katniss's soul knew that one look into Madge's eyes and she'd be a goner.
So Katniss hid. Away from those long sweeping gazes that always tried to catch hers. Concealed herself from the sight of Madge's hair haloed in the spring sunshine. Held her breath at each curious word or question Madge probed her with. Wishing she could take back her curt answers just to hear more of her delicate voice. She's a Mayor's daughter, rich and privileged - what would she want with a Seam girl? Yet the harder she hid. The more quiet she made herself. The further she shrank into the shadows. The more Madge ran after her. Pursued her with unassuming company. A flicker of a smile. Sentences that never dragged beyond a few words. Katniss wished she'd blabber on so she could tell her to shut the fuck up and leave her alone. Wished she wasn't so goddamned pretty so she could look away. Hoped that Madge would step too close and give her a reason to leave. But no, it felt like Madge knew each one of her hiding places by heart.
She stopped hiding and allowed Madge to find her. A gentle request for help during sewing class. Shared morsels of bread and pastries. Climbing on the rickety wooden frame just so she'd soak in her sunlit hair. When Madge took a tumble and fell into her arms - the scent of lavender clenched hard at her chest. And Katniss wondered why on earth she'd ever bothered hiding from this girl.
Perhaps this hiding instinct wore off with Madge's companionship. When Prim's name was announced to the District - Panem no longer offered her a place to hide. She stood in the open against all instinct. Only to be reminded with a kiss on her cheek everything she'd lose from volunteering for Prim. She can't be - surely? The forlorn look in her eyes. Mockingjay pin on her bosom. The brush of her smooth hands that set her heart aflutter. Katniss bit back tears of regret and vowed to stay alive. If only to hear her breathe one more time. Her name leaving Madge's lips. Katniss. Pleasant like the spring breeze.
The fantasies burned in her mind and spurred her to do unspeakable things. Hiding returned with its ferocious force of habit. She kissed a boy. Thought of Madge's lips against hers. Fought through hell and endured the crowds roaring her name like needlepoints sticking into her brain. Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. She hid on the train from sights that plagued her dreams. The unwelcome voices that filled her ears. Telling herself that only a girl with braided gold hair and eyes she could get lost in - could set everything right.
When the heady swirl of feelings caught up to them both and she had Madge pinned on the forest floor. Unable to hide any longer. Katniss finally allowed herself a moment of weakness and let the girl into her heart. For a few foolish moments, she'd hoped for a life with Madge. Tried to deceive herself there could be a future between them both. That they could grow up with husbands and children and share tea at each other's houses. Indulge in the occasional kiss. The brush of hands beneath clothes - always teetering on the verge of more but never giving into that stirring hunger. Because there was no way two girls could do these things, could there?
It didn't matter anyway. Because the Quell came and the bombs fell and Katniss went off to kill the President responsible for it all. Not knowing she'd end up killing the part of herself that loved Madge. Perhaps if she hid better. Made Peeta eat the nightlock instead of brazenly standing up to the Capitol. Or stopped being so goddamned rebellious and shrank into obscurity like Haymitch - Madge wouldn't have turned into a blackened corpse. She wouldn't have to wake screaming in the middle of the night with Mutts on her mind. Madge would be sitting with her, laughing and sewing and not buried in a mass grave.
She swore she'd hide better - but Panem had moved on and left her with no more places to conceal herself in. The primroses Peeta planted stared at her face each day. Nightmares chased her at night. The solitude of the woods became a macabre arena, dangers lurking at every corner. Her life became a futile endeavour at hiding. She couldn't hide in the hollow silence of her house. Nor in Peeta's arms, fraught with tremors when the memories spilled through the veneer of his stoic face. Nor in the woods or in the reconstructed District that she had destroyed. When she walked past the Undersees' family grave in the Meadow, Katniss finally broke into a fit of tears. Covering her eyes and sobbing so she'd remain hidden from view.
Here lies Madge Undersee.
What's the use? This was what hiding brought you to, right?
Katniss brushed her fingertips on Madge's engraved name. Kissed the earth which bore her ashes. Rose to her feet, wind cool against the sting of her tears.
And swore she'd stop hiding henceforth.
Thom invited her to cut the ribbon for a factory's opening - even though there would be cameras and people and eyes looking to her like she was some wounded puppy. First instinct was to shut the door in his face and hide in the pit of her memories. But she remembered Madge's fearless heart and the light in her eyes. And she said yes. I'll cut as many damn ribbons as you want. Put my face on the map of a reconstructed District 12. The one that Snow destroyed. Not herself.
She swallowed back the guilt one more time.
Peeta came up with an idea to bake a little extra bread each week and distribute it to the poor. Yes - I'll do it with you. Whether for the cameras or for the papers. Even if each hollow, dreadful pair of eyes looked upon her like she was a saviour. That sent her back to that hospital in District 8 with all the hopelessness thrust upon her shoulders by a country she could never save. She'd do it. She'd stop hiding from the truth.
Plutarch finally caught up to her civic duties and put it to her gently that they were running a new documentary about the former lives of Victors and wanted her on it. Haymitch couldn't be roused from his drunken stupors and Peeta was prone to fits when he tried to recollect the past. And they sorely needed at least one person from each District. At least the ones with surviving victors. There'd be cameras. Film crews. She'd go back to her house in the Seam and confront the place she lived in with her mother and Prim-
Plutarch's voice on the phone caught mid-sentence at her sister's name. Like he'd stabbed her with a knife that couldn't be pulled out. Katniss turned from the mouthpiece, afraid of the sob he could undoubtedly hear from the other end. None came. Only a question of reassurance.
"This isn't scripted again, is it?" Katniss kept the stammer from her voice, "I'm only doing it if you'll let me say whatever I want."
"Censorship died with Snow," Plutarch droned on, "the people of Panem are ready to know what the real district lives are about."
She'd have to dig up the past. Dad's accident. The prison of silence it bricked her mother into. All of her past burdens creeped up her legs like vines and begged to turn this down. The words formed on her lips.
"I'll do it," Katniss answered, before the ghosts of her past could answer on her behalf.
"Great! I'll send the crew over tomorrow."
"So soon?" Katniss asked the sound of an empty dial tone.
The film crew arrived the next day; Beetee's childhood stories still fresh on their notepads. No stylists. No escorts. Just her father's hunting jacket and a fresh face upon which her past etched itself.
They hadn't brought a script either. Choosing to lead Katniss to the Seam and let her eyes do the talking. Silence at first. Faint whirr of the cameras capturing every moment. Just when the producer thought to turn it off and save their audiences from a boring five minutes of nothing - she spoke.
"I stood here," Katniss pointed at a wooden step by an abandoned shack. She barely turned to the camera. "Each time the mine's shift whistle sounded. Because the workers would come down and I'd be sure my father was amongst them."
The words rolled right off her tongue. She'd kept them hidden for years. Thousands of people across Panem had similar stories as hers; the more they brought them out into the light. Perhaps the more they'd dissolve. Like sugar in the rain.
So Katniss talked. Never once meeting the camera but allowing her soul to tie a thread right into the heart of Panem. The hungry nights. Prim's silent pleas for help - even her mother's grief. Laid bare despite knowing Mrs Everdeen would undoubtedly see it from District 4. Yet despite her unfettered honesty about the hardships of her past and the empty spot at the dinner table where Prim would've sat - Katniss never brought them to the Undersee's house. She never told them about the afternoons spent in solitude next to Madge's clattering typewriter or the melody of piano music. She never brought them to that spot in the woods where they shared their first kiss. Perhaps she still hadn't given up this part of her grief.
Perhaps she was still hiding from it.
Plutarch arrived at the end of the filming's second day. Caught in the middle of the producer coaxing Katniss to sing one of her father's songs.
In skies of silver blue,
And every dawn that breaks anew,
In quiet winds and morning dew,
This is where I love you.
She'd stood under one of the trees in the meadow. Upon the same root she'd sat next to Madge and blushed at each other's company. Katniss looked away and allowed her last line to trail away into the spring breeze. The cameras still rolled, but all Katniss could hear were her breaths. Slow against her cheeks. I only ever want to be with you. Katniss turned from the cameras, not caring that all they saw was her back. A tear escaped her eyelids. She covered her face. Heavy sobs wracking her insides.
Somewhere amidst the snivelling a man told the cameras to stop.
"Plutarch?"
"I think we've quite enough footage for District 12 now, don't we?"
She wiped her eyes. Not quite meeting his. The paunchy man lit a cigar - more intent on giving her space to calm her breathing.
"That was a lovely song," Plutarch mumbled between puffs, "don't think I've ever heard you sing it on one of those propos."
Katniss forced a half-smile, "I don't see how that'd fit in with the revolution Coin was shooting for."
"Well, we're not in a revolution now. We're in a rebirth. A renaissance of a new Panem."
"Is this the part where you try to spin me into joining one of your singing programmes?" Katniss shook her head, "Because I've told you I-"
The rejection caught in her throat. Stop hiding. Yet they'd put her in a gown like they did the last time during the games. A stage. Bright lights and loud music and a thousand pairs of eyes watching her. And she has to sing this song? The song of her grief, privated away in her heart for the only girl she'd ever loved. Six feet under District 12 with no hope of coming back. She dug her nails into her palms as the thoughts looped over and over again. Madge isn't coming back. The least she could do was grieve. In public or in private. In the meadow or on a stage. But she wouldn't pretend this sorrow never existed.
"I'll do it," Katniss swallowed, her tears all but dried, "but I get to choose the songs."
Plutarch broke into a grin, "Mrs Everdeen. You can sing the national anthem, for what it's worth - as long as Panem hears you one more time."