For the first time in her life, Katniss Everdeen sat on a train to the Capitol not on her way to kill anyone. Rather, on a journey to heal. There were no weapons at the end of this track. No arenas. No soft flesh waiting for the tip of her arrow. Only a microphone and some dresses. No one waiting for her to save, only herself.
The spectators will remain. So would Caesar Flickerman.
After all this time she still can't avoid making a spectacle out of herself. A shattered vase to be gawked at. She shut her eyes and hummed dad's tune to herself again - hoping that mutual healing could touch both the masses and her deadbeat heart.
There weren't many stylists around, most had lost their ostentatious Games' careers and returned to work in beauty parlors and salons. A plain-looking girl with light hair sat her before a mirror and tried on different types of make up. She was barely fifteen. Katniss's eyes ached at the bright white light bulbs and the reflection of her own made-up face. The girl worked diligently. Stopping every now and then to ask her preferences. Fulvia had never asked.
Wait a minute.
"You're not from the Capitol, are you?" curiosity got hold of Katniss.
"District 1, Kayla," the girl answered, dabbing foundation on Katniss's forehead, "my mother ran a cosmetics workshop back home."
Kayla took a step back to appraise her handiwork. Ponytailed hair draped her left shoulder, though she had green eyes. A crease graced her thin, pink lips when her makeup passed muster. Katniss had to tamp back memories of the last time a girl stood this close to her. The touch of sandalwood on her breath. Thin white button-blouse.
"You live in the Capitol now? They allow Districtfolk?" Katniss asked, more to distract herself.
"Plutarch wanted some District stylists to work on his programme - he thinks it'll lend a more natural edge to the performers," Kayla replied, "something about erasing the walls that separate capitol from district."
Seventy-five years of animosity and separation and Plutarch thinks he can pull down the walls with some makeup?
"I don't know if he ever will," Katniss muttered under her breath, before turning to Kayla, "I think you did well though - better than my last stylist for sure."
Kayla passed her a tube of lipstick and some foundation. Engraved in gold-lettered font. Etoile Cosmetics.
"My mother's having our wares stocked in capitol stores - do consider buying our product," Kayla dropped to a whisper, "if we sell enough, we can afford a house here."
The alien-sounding words swam around her head as Kayla left the dressing room. Free-enterprise. District-made products. Open borders. Katniss leaned back in her chair and wondered just how much Panem had changed after a year of shutting herself away. And wondered just how many Districtfolk were willing to live in a place that had oppressed them and killed their children.
A hollow in her chest echoed when she stepped into Cinna's old studio. Instead of his calm, assuring presence - there stood an elderly tailor from District 8. Her old dresses were still visible in a glass wardrobe. The orange dress from the first games. Her wedding dress - Mockingjay wings and all. Her throat tightened as the memories swam back. Crowds and cheering and a nation doused in kerosene. Waiting to catch fire.
A wrinkled hand touched hers and snapped Katniss out of her stupor.
"Sweetie - I think you've grown out of these girly dresses now, don't you think?"
Her brain screamed yes.
Her heart yelled no.
She tried on some of the tailor's designs. Plain and simple with muted colours. Gone were the ruffles and exotic materials and complicated constructions. Straight-lines. Loose-fitting around the legs. Plutarch had even allowed her to go on stage in Jeans and a Plaid shirt if she so wanted. She gave a few suggestions for altering the seams before a crewmember arrived and shepherded Katniss onstage for a soundcheck.
The stage's emptiness shot her like an arrow. It took a few seconds to comprehend just how much had changed - the lights and cameras and big, flashy screens. Just a year ago she had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with 23 other tributes as a macabre premonition to the mauling thereafter. Arms raised high and blatant lies like she could change something. A year later and the austere silence led her to remember that the only thing unchanged in Panem was herself.
Still the scared girl hiding from the masses.
Her heart began to pound as her boots made hollow, empty thudding noises onstage. Empty concert hall. Crewmembers eyed her warily. She heard Caesar Flickerman's phantom voice tearing the crowd asunder, "Katniss Everdeen! The girl on fire!" Thousands of hands applauding for her. Voices cheering and yelling before they gradually turned into baying cries for her blood.
Her throat knotted. Skin went cold.
"Ms Everdeen?" Cressida shook her from the fright. She pointed at a microphone.
Thousands of concert hall seats laid silent. Katniss tried to look beyond the darkness and see a thousand gaudy Capitolites cheering for her death. Nothing. No one wanted her dead. Just a performance. Katniss huffed a shallow few breaths and watched it fail to unravel the tangled mess in her head.
"Katniss - whenever you're ready."
She couldn't hear the mic's feedback squeak. Couldn't hear the backing music. Teleprompter's slow scroll blurred beneath her foggy vision. The only sound in her ears were the echoing thump of a heartbeat. Hers. Thousands of others followed - pinching out into silence one by one. Right before her own pulse faded away, she heard a scream. Prim's blonde braids burning to ash and her clothes catching fire.
Katniss's eyes shot open.
The music had started. Looping on its first bar until she could catch the notes. Katniss clamped a hand over her ear and started singing. A patriotic song about the rise of Panem. She'd rehearsed this a dozen times on the train ride but the words still felt scraggly as she croaked out the high notes. The sound engineers scrambled to adjust the speakers. Oblivious to her shaking. She sang and belted to an empty hall. The chorus's last words awaiting her like a roadside bomb.
"...right until the end."
The mixer overcompensated for her voice. End. End. End. Katniss's residual voice echoed through the cavernous space and through the dark recesses of her mind. End. Her watery eyes widened at the emptiness before her. You should've met your end with Prim. Hollow, echoing dread closed her throat and a thousand hands reached out to drag her down. At the top of the stage a hand grabbed her boot. Finnick. Screaming for Annie. Knees buckled. Lungs squeezed every trace of air out. She couldn't breathe. Her heart slammed a few terse beats before she screamed at the phantom stillness in her chest.
"Katniss, Katniss - just breathe," Cressida stamped over. Amidst thudding footsteps and flashing lights Katniss saw a white-faced mutt scrambling on all fours.
Towards her.
"No!" Katniss yelled, not even realising she'd curled into a ball on the wooden floor, "Get away!"
Sweat bathed her face. The mutt kept crawling closer. Glinty-white fangs telling her to breathe. There wasn't anywhere to hide onstage. She leapt and ran as hard as her heaving lungs allowed. Curtains piled her face. She lunged headfirst into cameras. Crew and stylists resembled bloodied war victims. Shoving and gasping and hearing her name echo in varying shades of frightful panic. Her lungs teetered on the verge of giving way before she tumbled through the hall's main doors. Cold air blasted her face and she knelt on the stone steps. Unsure if she meant to retch her stomach out or heave her lungs in.
"Oh god," Katniss finally croaked. Strands of saliva dotted the steps. Her braid had come undone. She stood in the sunshine and watched the clouds drift by. Capitolites milling about minding their business. You're a nobody. A beeze picked up and she allowed it to wash away the last five minutes from her brain. The simmering surf of panic dredged away like grains of sand on the seashore. Leaving the sobering reality that five minutes onstage was all it took to unravel her.
She was woefully unprepared for this.
"Hey."
Plutarch stood beside her. Once again smoking a cigar. Was he capable of ever standing anywhere outdoors without resembling a chimney? Katniss bowed her head in shame.
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to," Plutarch drawled in his baritone voice, "or if you can't."
There was no hiding from his gaze that looked at her like a wounded puppy. The voice launched an attack on her again. Hide. There's no place for you here.
She anchored her feet into the steps.
"I'm fine," Katniss gritted her teeth, "j-just had a moment of weakness."
"You call that weakness?" Plutarch scoffed, "I see it leaving you."
The grief came to her in crests. Like waves chipping away at a cliff. She looked upon its tides and imagined wallowing beneath its warmth. Sinking herself to the bottom.
"Not everyone has the privilege of being a stone block," Plutarch mused, looking at the birds, "but hammer away at stone long enough and cracks will form. Slowly. Unseen."
"So what? I should be like water instead?"
Plutarch sneered, "Check in with Dr Aurelius, see what he says."
A pair of tickets sat in his outstretched hand. Flecked with cigar ash. Panem Forever - LIVE! Guest Starring: the Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen.
"I didn't know I needed tickets for my own show."
"Front row seats, pricey ones," Plutarch handed them over, "maybe it'd help if you find a familiar face in the Capitol to cheer you on."
With hours to burn until nightfall and fearful of her old training centre apartment - Katniss asked the Capitol-sponsored driver to drop her in the suburbs for a slow walk back. She wore a scarf despite the mild spring weather. Sunshine draped the trees in gold-crowning glory. Birds fluttered in the air. Faint scent of pine. It'd all been a greying mess the last time she scuttled from house to house. Pods set every fifty yards and death lingering behind their footsteps. Now, people strolled the streets. She wondered if they knew about the tripwires. She wanted to point out each crack in the pavement slabs. An autocannon or electrified barbed wire waiting to burst forth and maim everyone in range.
Katniss's boots treaded softly on each tile. A breeze rustled the trees. A year ago each one of these leaves burned to the ground. A fire she started. Yet within the space of a year, it'd all grown back. Blooming white and pink. Lilacs and Cherry Blossoms. People sauntered past her, uncaring. Her heartbeat stilled. You're safe - no one's coming for you. It might as well be a pleasant day in the Merchant Section. A day in the meadow plucking apples. Strolling without a care-
She stepped on a loose tile. A sudden click tremored beneath her boot heel and Katniss froze. Eyes shot wide open. Whitened, pinpoint pupils lifted to see the nearest Pod that could set her ablaze. Or pierce her with skewers. Her throat closed and she ran. Legs pumping acid as she sought the nearest shelter. A place she could cover - shoot back at peacekeepers. Buckle down for the night until it was safe again. Fists closed around an imaginary bow. Foggy eyes narrowed on an open door. Soft piano music. Barely making sense of the signboard nailed over its red brick structure.
Menagerie of Marvels
Katniss tripped and stumbled up the steps until she was safe inside. Breaths still came in ragged spurts. Keeled over, hands on knees, Katniss lurched upright and sucked in a deep breath. Filling her lungs with the scent of old books. Age and wisdom and dense leather. Piano notes filled her ears. That melody. Her spirit calmed. There wasn't a pod outside waiting to kill her. No bombs raining down from the sky. Only this. The quiet music and cozy home somehow filled with books. A baby screamed somewhere.
I didn't just walk into someone's house, did I?
Aisles of bookshelves lined the room, floor-to-ceiling. Cash register on the counter and a gleaming silver coffee machine. A bookstore. Katniss pivoted toward the baby's cries. Eyes met another girl's; seated in a leather armchair. Red tresses adorned her floral chiffon dress and an infant squirmed within her grasp.
"Don't mind him," she called out, bouncing the baby on her knee, "feel free to look around."
"Is this your store?" Katniss asked.
"No ma'am, I work here."
That melody. Coming from inside. Light and cheery and strumming the chords of a distant memory tucked within her soul. A sudden gasp derailed her brain. Followed by a hoarse, guffawing chuckle. The girl had her hands over her mouth with eyebrows arched in amazement. Oh boy, here we go.
"Katniss Everdeen!" she giggled, "Katniss Everdeen just walked into my store - unbelievable!"
"Well, yea - I was just looking for-"
"I saw the promos on TV - you're in the Capitol for that concert right? Panem Forever?"
Katniss adjusted her hair and nodded, "Well - just for tomorrow night. I'm headed back after-"
"Are you looking for gifts? I don't think they get many books down in 12 so this would be a great place to start-"
She'd gotten up now, infant in arm. It was clear from her simple clothes and plain face; the sincerity in her voice - that this girl wasn't a Capitolite. Also, she was far too young to be running a bookstore and babysitting at the same time.
"Actually, yes - a gift would be nice," Katniss murmured, tilting her head, "but I was actually drawn by the music and wondered if you knew who was playing. It's not one of those automatic music machines, is it?"
"Oh no, it's the boss, she owns this house."
As if on cue, the piano stopped. Footsteps thudded the hollow floorboards. She saw the white cotton dress flutter from the bannisters. Her eyes shot wide open. Blonde locks which caught the sunbeam and called it their home. The bounce of her stride. It took a second to register that face she'd held so tenderly in her hands. Those lips she'd lavished with kisses. Eyes she'd lost herself in countless times. Katniss's memory caught ablaze at every affectionate word and sweet nothing they've whispered to each other.
"It's impossible," she gasped beneath her breath, "Madge."
Somewhere amidst the thumping between her ears, the girl jokingly called out, "Madge - you wouldn't happen to know who she is, would you?"
Katniss's feet broke free from their roots. She lurched forward with open arms. Her heart bloomed so large she thought her ribcage might burst. But right before she's able to hurl herself into Madge's arms - an outstretched hand stopped her. Extended in a handshake. And those words which sent her heart plummeting into despair.
"Hey!" Madge greeted, with a tone of friendly warmth, "You're that Mockingjay girl aren't you? Katniss Everdeen?"