Katniss Everdeen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ten_fwd2016-03-26 08:15 pm
burn_with_us) wrote in ten_fwd2016-03-26 08:15 pm
Entry tags:
father's day [locked to THG castmates]
Katniss hasn't been here very long but she's been here long enough to know the places to go to get something to eat, to distract herself and, most importantly, the places to avoid. She has learned that the Holodeck has a lot of really nice simulations loaded into it, places she can hunt, and she's been spending a lot of time there when she just needs to get away from the constant crush of people on board.
She's headed there today, in fact. She knows the weapons aren't real and she can never take them out but it makes her feel like she's home for a little while and eases the ache in her chest. Today, she tries to pull up her usual hunting scenario in 12's woods and gets something else. It's someone she hasn't seen in ages, someone long dead.
"Dad?" she croaks out, scared to move in case it isn't real. He's sitting at the edge of the woods in 12, still wearing his dusty clothes from the mine, and he's whistling softly beneath his breath. He's got coal permanently settled in the creases of his skin and it makes his eyes seem that much brighter, his teeth that much whiter. He laughs and motions her close and Katniss feels like her feet are wooden and she can't find the strength to move.
"Katniss, come on. You're growing like a weed," he says, warm and soft, and Katniss feels tears pricking at her eyes. He doesn't know. He thinks she's still eleven and too young to put her name in the Reaping, too young to know that sometimes men go to the mine and they never come back.
"Come sing with me, Katniss." She finds her strength and moves close, singing a haunting descant to his low melody and twining the notes in together like so many vines. All the mockingjays in the woods pick up the song and start singing it, echoing refrains from one end of 12 to the other.
She stays with him for as long as she can and when the simulation shuts down, Katniss sinks down and hugs her knees to her chest. She stays that way for a while before going back outside the room, looking back wistfully.
"It's not real," she says, angry with herself for getting wrapped up into it. It's no different than the Capitol, than the illusions in the Arena. It's just there to hurt her.
She's headed there today, in fact. She knows the weapons aren't real and she can never take them out but it makes her feel like she's home for a little while and eases the ache in her chest. Today, she tries to pull up her usual hunting scenario in 12's woods and gets something else. It's someone she hasn't seen in ages, someone long dead.
"Dad?" she croaks out, scared to move in case it isn't real. He's sitting at the edge of the woods in 12, still wearing his dusty clothes from the mine, and he's whistling softly beneath his breath. He's got coal permanently settled in the creases of his skin and it makes his eyes seem that much brighter, his teeth that much whiter. He laughs and motions her close and Katniss feels like her feet are wooden and she can't find the strength to move.
"Katniss, come on. You're growing like a weed," he says, warm and soft, and Katniss feels tears pricking at her eyes. He doesn't know. He thinks she's still eleven and too young to put her name in the Reaping, too young to know that sometimes men go to the mine and they never come back.
"Come sing with me, Katniss." She finds her strength and moves close, singing a haunting descant to his low melody and twining the notes in together like so many vines. All the mockingjays in the woods pick up the song and start singing it, echoing refrains from one end of 12 to the other.
She stays with him for as long as she can and when the simulation shuts down, Katniss sinks down and hugs her knees to her chest. She stays that way for a while before going back outside the room, looking back wistfully.
"It's not real," she says, angry with herself for getting wrapped up into it. It's no different than the Capitol, than the illusions in the Arena. It's just there to hurt her.