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Chapter Text

Everyone knew Kat with her stories, songs, and head in the clouds. Everyone also knew that Kat, with her stories, songs, and refusal to put her feet down on solid ground, would get her into trouble one day.

Even Kat.

She hadn’t always been someone who would drift in the wind like the birds, but with time, she could handle reality less and less. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t ground herself when needed; she refused to be as helpless as her mother.

Perhaps it started when she first realized where she was, at five years old and demanded that she be called Kat instead of Katniss. Her Papa had brought home a friend of his that day and said that they’d been friends since babies, but he had never visited because he lived outside of the Seam now, traveling often.

Kat had stared up at Haymitch Abernathy and laughed. She then demanded for him to pick her up and put her on his shoulders, because he looked tall and had muscles. Haymitch had twitched, fingers searching for a flask in the face of an innocent child, but they had found none, and so Kat giggled while hanging off the back of a man who had killed for his own survival.

Haymitch only visited once more before her father’s demands that he stay sober around Kat and Prim became too much for the guilt-ridden man. 

That didn’t matter very much. Kat turned seven and lost her father, and a part of her sanity with him. He had begun teaching her how to use a bow, and suddenly, all Kat did was go hunting, sing, and run around District Twelve with no care for class lines.

Mr Mellark once opened the bakery doors to see Kat standing on the steps, humming Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and holding a dead squirrel. She’d given the poor baker a heart attack apparently, but he had traded the fat animal for two loaves of stale bread. Meat was meat, after all, even if it had been traded by a dirt and grass-covered seven-year-old girl who had been humming outside their house at dawn.

Haymitch had not gone undisturbed by Kat either, the young girl knocking on his door with a bow on her back and a toddler Prim holding onto her skirt.

“Mama hasn’t gotten out of bed today,” She told him matter-of-factly. “She didn’t get outta bed yesterday too. She said Papa’s name, though, but he’s gone. Mrs Canário says you drink because you lost people too, do you think we can have some of that? If Mama drinks and gets outta bed, then we can eat. I couldn’t catch anything today.”

Haymitch may be a drunk old bastard, but he had a soft spot for little girls and for the late Burdock Everdeen. Both girls had been swiftly shuffled inside and given some bread made of tesserae grain and a boiled egg each. It was the most they had eaten ever since their father died, and Kat struggled not to cry over the meal. Instead, she started to hum, an old song from a time long before Panem had ever existed.

Haymitch had told the both of them to stay there and not touch anything, not that either girl would, and then left, swearing up a blue streak. Prim, despite only being freshly four, sat perfectly still in her older sister’s lap, listening to the girl tell a story of resistance against an evil empire. 

The problem with Panem, Kat had told her baby sister that very afternoon once Haymitch had come back and told them that they were going to stay with him for a few days, was that there was far too little empathy and everyone was too scared to help each other. 

“You have to ask for help,” She said, patting her blond hair as they shared a bed bigger than any they had ever seen. “Even if you don’t think you’ll get it, and then you say thank you even if they won’t. Change doesn’t happen overnight, you have to push at it slowly through the years.”

Prim, too young to fully understand Kat’s sage advice, nodded straight off to sleep.

Two days later, Asterid Everdeen had nearly rammed the door down to Haymitch’s house, demanding her two daughters be returned to her. A young Peacekeeper stared at her, unsure if he should stop her from taking her daughters back out of the care of the alcoholic victor. Quickly, however, Haymitch handed them both back and snapped at their mother for being irresponsible with them.

“Sweetheart,” He’d waved a finger in her face. “It may not be my business, but if Burdie’s girls ever come back telling me their Ma lost it while she has a responsibility to their kids, I’ll take ‘em away again.”

Their mother had snarled, an emotion they had never seen on her face, and spat: “Like you don’t have a responsibility to all the children the Capitol takes? Stay sober and then you can say shit about me.”

She had marched away then, dragging the two younger girls behind her like errant ducklings, but Kat had just giggled. 

“Thank you, Uncle Haymitch!” She had called back sweetly, unable to address the bitterness between the two adults.

By the time that they’d arrived back home, Kat was skipping and singing songs, a smile on her face.

That was probably when the entirety of District Twelve realized that Kat wasn’t all there, and it was probably also when Kat realized that she couldn’t handle this new life.

She hadn’t even started her journey to Hunger Games yet, and she had lost it.

Though, perhaps just realizing that the books she once read and the movies she once watched were her Hunger Games. She had to kill the woman she once was, and everyone she once knew, to keep living in this world. It’s a pity she refused to bury them, though.

Chapter Text

“Kat.”

She wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings, trying to remember what the third chorus of Fourth of July was. 

Shall we look at the moon, my little croon ? That doesn’t sound quite right, but she kept going. Why do you cry? Make the most of your life, while it is rife, while there is (there’s? it is?) light.

“Kat.” A voice insists, “Kitten.”

Kitten: that’s her.

She blinked wide brown eyes up at Haymitch, realizing a tad too late that this wasn’t where she was supposed to have gone. 

Too stuck in her own head, her small legs had taken her to the Victor’s Village in Twelve, instead of across town back home to Seam once school had ended. She wasn’t alone, Peeta and Madge had followed her, probably worried that someone would bother her again.

Although, last time that happened, Kat had broken the nose of the boy who stole the ribbons from her hair while she had been distracted.

“Kitten,” Haymitch coaxed again. His breath didn’t stink of alcohol, but it was softly there. Tipsy, not drunk. “What’re you doing here?”

He wasn’t alone, a woman as pale as snow from some sort of powder and hair as blue as the ocean stood behind him.

“Sorry, Mr Haymitch,” Peeta apologised for her. “We had history last, and you know how she gets with the Treaty of Treason.”

Peeta was a very sweet boy, Kat had found out. She had found out that he sometimes ran bread deliveries in the morning, and she had gotten into the habit of fetching bread for Haymitch twice a week, just to remind him to eat and he gave her a coin for it. After that, she’d bugged him into coming along with her to deliver to Haymitch’s, but she wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t doing it because he thought Kat would end up dead in a ditch if she wasn’t being followed around 24/7.

“It’s sad,” She said without any fanfare. “People dying makes me sad.”

She doesn’t need to be all philosophical about it. She’s nine, with twin braids in her hair and a ratty dress that lived with permanent grass stains. It’s a fact.

Haymitch didn’t even blink at that, “People dying should make everyone sad, sweetheart, but it doesn’t.”

“Does that mean there’s something wrong with them?” She asked, “Or do they get taught the opposite of us?”

“It can be both,” He shrugged. “Best not to be upset about it.”

Considering it, she shrugged. “Okay.”

Madge tugged on her sleeve, “Can we go home now? Daddy’s going to wonder where I went.”

“I’ve got her,” Haymitch said, grabbing her from under her arms and hauling her up onto his hip, making an exaggerated groan. “You two run home, tell your parents that you were helping me, yeah?”

“Bye Peeta, bye Madge!” She called after them.

Kat wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and he made a playful choking noise, sticking out his tongue to make it comical. It wasn’t accurate at all, she had been deemed old enough to watch the Games last year and had seen three teenagers be choked to death since, but Haymitch would know that too. She giggled because what else was she to do?

“How about you join me for dinner, Kitten?” He offered, “You can help me scandalize Effie.”

He gestured between the Capitol woman and the girl in his arms, “Effie Trinket, this is Kat Everdeen, she’s the daughter of my best friend. Kat, Miss T is going to be helping me out with mentoring from now on.”

“She’s pretty,” Kat declared. “In a weird way.”

“Thank you,” Effie Trinket smiled down at her, even while there was a slight wrinkle in the middle of her brow, which betrayed her confusion. “You’d be pretty too if you had a bath and some new clothes.”

Rude and out-of-touch; Kat decided to breeze right past the comment. “You should wear butterflies. You’d be prettiest with butterflies.”

Haymitch snorted, “You heard the little lady, Miss T, you gotta wear butterflies to look pretty.”

“Butterflies aren’t in fashion, dear.” She tried to explain to Kat, but the girl was already trying to throw herself out of Haymitch’s arms. 

“I wanna wear fire,” She announced. “And gold glitter. Lucy told me Capitol people bathe in buttermilk and rose petals.”

“Is Lucy one of your little friends?” Effie asked. 

“No,” Haymitch didn’t so much put her down as he did fling her onto his couch. “She’s named every damn bird that flies over the district ‘Lucy,’ especially the Mockingjays. She’s nine, Miss T, they like to make up stories at that age.”

Haymitch well fucking aware that Kat wasn’t making up stories because she’s a little girl, that the other kids at school would whisper ‘Mad Kat’ behind her back, but that was something he wasn’t so stupid as to openly announce. Or, perhaps, like with his drinking, he wished to live in denial about the fact that his last link to his life before the Games, the daughter that was a spitting-image of his dead best friend, had gone insane. Either way, it was not Kat’s problem to deal with.

“Miss Effie!” She cried, “Can I have my lips be blue like yours?”

“Manners, darling, manners.” She tutted, “Ask properly, like a civilised young woman.”

“Pleaaasseee,” She whined, dragging out every sound in the word. “Pretty please can I look pretty like you?”

You could see the exact moment that Effie Trinket crumpled under the charm of a young Kat, delighted by the idea of a little girl wanting to mimic her. “Well, I don’t see the harm.”

“Yes!” She jumped off the couch, grinning brightly. 

Haymitch just went rooting in his cabinets, “Just the lipstick, Asterid hates seeing her girls looking older than their age.”

Kat couldn’t quite understand how Haymitch knew that, she didn’t understand much about her own Ma. Asterid Everdeen had been broken ever since her husband’s death, much like Kat had, but rather than being loud, Asterid had gone quiet. She didn’t feel much anymore, half the time there was nothing there behind her eyes as she went through the motions. Kat felt too much, she knew that, so she never could see herself in her Ma, not like everyone else who said that they were cut from the same cloth. Haymitch seemed to understand them both, knew exactly what they were feeling, always. Kat thought that perhaps he was like her, and felt too much, but he wanted to be like Asterid, who felt nothing no more.

“Is Asterid her mother?” Effie asked as she took a small tube from the pocket of her purse. “Your friend?”

Haymitch pulled out bread, grains, and some dried squirrel Kat had brought him in exchange for him paying for her and Prim’s new shoes. “Asterid’s her mother, yeah. I was friends with her Pa, Burdock Azure. He could sing better than anyone here in 12, except his Ma, but she passed before I went into the games. Kat’s got his singing voice.”

“Roses are red, violets are blue; birds in the heavens know that I love you,” Kat sang quietly. Her Pa liked that song, and so did Lucy Gray. Even Coryo liked that song once upon a time.

“Well, don’t you sing just like a dove,” Effie cooed. “My friends in the Capitol would just pinch your cheeks! You’d make a pretty coin singing for us.”

Kat shared a look with Haymitch over the woman’s shoulder, twin looks of exasperation at Capitol ideas. It’s illegal to preform for a living in the Districts, it has been for the past sixty years. Though Kat has sung at a small handful of weddings and assemblies, she never did so in front of a camera or got paid for it, not like her grandparents were once able to do. 

“Pucker up now,” Effie demanded, smooshing Kat’s cheeks together. The blue lipstick was applied liberally, but with precision, not a single smear to be seen.

“Thank you!” She chirped when it was done, immediately beelining to see if she can sneak attack Haymitch and leave blue lipstick stains on him. 

Instantly, she got scooped up with one strong arm and set aside. 

“Like I don’t know you, Kitten.” Haymitch scoffed, amusement in his eyes. “Go set the table.”

Kat doesn’t set the table often. There’s no need to do it at home, not when there are days where Kat has to physically hand her mother food and other days where the only meal of the day is the dried meat she brought in. Haymitch doesn’t set the table unless both Kat and Prim are over, which is at least twice a week during these leaner winter days. All of 12 was malnourished in some way, with the Seam being actively starving and the Merchies at least able to eat two meals a day all year round, but, as a Victor, Haymitch could comfortably eat four meals a day for the rest of his life. So Kat had no guilt showing up on his doorstep whenever Prim complained about being hungry. 

“Okay, Da ,” Kat teased, snatching a piece of flatbread as she went, tucking it away in a pocket. That’ll be Prim’s breakfast tomorrow.

She should go hunting before school again tomorrow and see if she can get a fat pigeon or at least a small woodland animal. If worst came to worst, a few crickets to fry could be collected. Whatever gave Prim enough to eat.

Unbidden, Kat started humming again.

Chapter Text

There was something very strange about being in a world identical to yours but tilted to the left. 

Turn right, turn left— butterfly effect.

Kat could run around all of Appalachia and still not find all the evidence of her old life. There was a piece of graffiti in the woods, a rock near what was once an old campsite, where a few teens had scrawled their names and the year. 2014 had existed here once, so had a Dommie, Jazmin, Carter, and Mia, but they were all dead and gone now.

But for some things, Kat trusted them to stay the same.

“50 tesserae?” Madge gaped. “Kat! What are you thinking?”

“Is Haymitch not doing enough?” Peeta frowned, “I’ll talk to him if you don’t.”

“No.” Kat quickly shut down that thought quickly, “Haymitch is doing plenty.”

“Then why?” Madge demanded.

“I won’t get chosen this year,” She spoke with perfect certainty. “Might as well stock up on grain for winter.”

“Kat–” Peeta began, concerned.

“It’s rigged to end in tears,” She informed them, unbothered. “Crying until it floods and drowns us all.”

This was the 70th Hunger Games. Kat knew about the 70th Games, though she had had to do the math to figure out whose game it was, but there had been only one possible answer left. Annie Cresta was going to drown herself in her tears and then learn to breathe underwater.

“It rolls over next year,” Madge stressed. “Your names don’t get removed, Kat, you’ll have fifty in next year.”

“No,” When she shook her head, the braids swung round like a rattle drum. “I’ll have a hundred next year.”

“A hundred what?” Gale asked, butting into the conversation. 

Kat didn’t like Gale, he was rude to all the Merchant kids and tried to force this idea that he was the ‘big brother’ to all the Seam kids. He never realised that the villains hid their faces behind masks, that the rich neighbor had nothing on the rich overlord. He was a radical the same way that many young people in her old life were radical, critical and defiant and never knowing that they were playing right into the politician’s hands.

Peeta and Madge shared a short but meaningful look. They didn’t like Gale either, but Kat was never rude to anyone, so they didn’t aggravate anyone who could help her. Sometimes, that was the only protection she had against the world; kindness is an awfully powerful weapon.

“Tesserae,” Peeta answered for her. “Kat thinks she should put 50 tesserae in every year.”

“Are ya fucking insane?” Gale stared at her in horror before grabbing her shoulder. “Does your Ma know?”

“My Ma knows nothing,” She twisted, but then her braids swung around like that rattle drum again, so she kept twisting. Turning, spinning, round and round like a clock, her skirt flaring up. Until she spun too quick and got too dizzy and fell down and lay on her back. “I ain’t getting reaped. I’m too Covey for that.”

The Covey were all but extinct, married into and shuffled into the families of the Seam, although they all knew which kids could sing as sweet as a sparrow and held a fire in their coal eyes. Her Pa was Covey, and her Grandparents were Covey, but nobody in her generation calls themselves Covey anymore. Three generations were all it took. Coriyo must be happy about that. He hates Covey girls.

“Covey?” Gale made a face. “Like the old fiddler?”

Clerk Carmine was an old fiddler. He could outplay the devil himself and he knew it. He also let Kat sing while he played, but never for too long and never for the good songs.

“Like my Pa,” She corrected. “Like me.”

Not Prim. Prim Rose Everdeen had a Covey name, but she was Merchant to her bones. Prim was just like their Ma, but their Ma was… fragile. Prim had Covey bones, but Merchant muscles and skin and hair and eyes. 

“What does being Covey have to do with getting reaped?” Madge asked, nudging her up from the floor. 

“Covey girls are made of all-fire,” Sometimes it hurt Kat to how obvious it all was. How hidden it all was. The Capital worked hard to hide the obvious. “We melt the Snow. They don’t need that in the Capital, it’s all so cold there.”

The Capital was built on the bones of children, cold and frozen and eaten alive. The maid was eaten. Cannibal Capital. 

“The Capital is pretty warm,” Peeta said, but he wasn’t trying to correct her, not really. He listened far more than he corrected. “But I hear it’s pretty windy.”

“Wyoming is windy,” She agreed. What was she doing again? Oh, Tesserae. “I have to go put my name in. I need the Tesserae.”

“No, you don’t.” Gale tried to grab her again. “Fifty is far too much. You can put it in five times, no more.”

“Prim needs the Tesserae, so does all the other kids.” Kat was never gonna keep it all to her family. That’s how they get you. They make it a risk for you to fend for yourself, so it’s an even bigger risk to have empathy. Kat doesn’t care if she died in the Arena, however, because she knows that there are fates far worse than death. “I’ll be fine.”

She was fine, but all three of them decided to snitch on her.

Haymitch Abernathy descended onto her like a very angry guardian angel, got into an argument with her Ma, and spirited both Everdeen girls to his house for the week leading up to the Reaping.

Kat would be more upset if not for the fact that he kept nearly sober the entire time, only ever tripping into tipsy and hiding the stronger stuff. Still, she placed her five tesserae names into the lot, because Kat was not above raising unholy hell. 

Not that anyone knew of the unholy hell that occurred for the less than 24 hours that Haymitch refused to allow Kat to put in any tesserae. Kat is an angel. Off-putting and too light and there was something wrong with her eyes, yes, but an angel. Even Haymitch believed that most of the time.

Then the water came in cold and there was a mouse in his bed and the bread was a bit burnt and stale and he couldn’t find his left shoe and Kat wasn’t talking only singing and…

Uncle Haymitch broke when she brought in a grey-white pigeon into the house. The feathers were left everywhere, scattered with the poor little bird’s panic, and Kat instantly regretted bringing one of her birds into it. She apologised to poor Lucy several times.

Miss Effie arrived the next morning, just in time for her Ma to yell at Haymitch about risking her getting reaped. 

Prim sat quietly with wide watery blue eyes as Miss Effie redid her twin braids. Haymitch and Ma were in the other room, yelling whispers, but the walls were thin.

“Miss Effie?” Kat spoke up, fiddling with the edge of her skirt. It was a faded green thing, passed down from some Covey girl on her Pa’s side going by the trio of ribbons sown into stripes near the hem. It was clearly a reaping outfit, made only for wearing during formal events. A lot of girls in her family wore this skirt during their first reapings, and she thinks that Prim will wear it one day too.

“Yes, little bird?” Effie replied, focusing on putting the bows in Prim’s hair. She had taken the ribbons out from her own hair to put in Kat’s and Prim’s braids. Effie was matching Kat this year, with a dress covered in green ribbon bows and a long curly wig in forest green.

“I won’t get reaped,” Kat said seriously over the sound of her Ma smacking her palm on a table. “But when I go to the games, can you do my hair for me?”

“Of course, little bird,” Effie didn’t question the idea of Kat going to the games, even if she did tense just a tad at it. “I’ll do yours and your sister’s hair every game.”

Prim never said a thing about the games, never spoke about them, and Kat sometimes wondered if Prim even understood what they were. She wasn’t even old enough yet to watch.

“Kitten? Rosie?” Haymitch walked in, looking like he was going to search for a bottle the second they left. “Your Ma is going to take you to the reaping now.”

Kat hopped up, smoothed out her skirt, and took Prim’s hand. “See ya, Uncle Hay. I’ll be looking for you on the screen.”

Katniss Everdeen was not reaped on her first reaping, nor her second, nor her third. Her name was never called at all by Effie, no matter how much tesserae she claimed.

Chapter Text

Peeta was floating on air almost as much as Kat usually did.

Kat was ignoring his dopey smile as she swung their joined hands between them. “Staring, at the blank page before you, open up the dirty window~”

“Little bird,” Effie tsked. “Stop singing, I’ll smudge your make-up.”

“Release your inhibitions,” She murmured so Effie could do the rouge better. “Feel the rain on your skin.”

“You better not,” Effie scolded, pinching her cheek. “The rain would wash my artistry off and make your hair a frizzy mess.”

“It’s not going to rain today,” Haymitch complained as he wrangled his own Everdeen girl. Prim had her little duck tail out and was trying to eat as he fixed her collar. “Rosie-baby, it’s okay.”

Ever since Kat’s first reaping day came and went without incident, the two girls had been living increasingly at Haymitch’s place, a near shared custody deal. They had gained a lot of weight due to it, Prim being able to keep baby fat on her cheeks and Kat not having sharp cheekbones. It also meant that Prim gained the nervous habit of snacking rather than biting her nails.

“What if I get reaped?” She was terrified.

Kat smoothed her blue dress, grabbed from her Ma’s closet. Their Ma had been surprisingly aware that day, but she tended to be like that on Reaping Day, and so when they headed over to the Victors Village to walk to the Hall with Haymitch, she had laid their clothes out and done their hair. It was a rare day to have everyone all together and aware.

“Your name is only in there once,” Haymitch tried to soothe. “It’s so unlikely its almost impossible.”

What he didn’t say is that Kat’s name is in there over fifty times already and she hasn’t ever gotten reaped. 

Their Ma’s hands clenched, digging her nails into her palms in fear, before relaxing.

“But if it does, Da?”

Prim started calling Haymitch ‘ Da’ two years ago, to their Ma’s worry. To Haymitch’s worry. Anyone close to a victor is more likely to get reaped, and Prim isn’t Covey like Kat is.

“Then I’ll volunteer for you,” Kat shut it down. She blinked too-aware eyes at her little sister. “Da will mentor me and Effie can fix my hair.”

“What?” Peeta finally snapped out of it. “Kat, it’s the games .”

“I know how to play,” She said, as if she was a career. She wasn’t. She was a huntress and a big sister and a very lost young woman. But she can play, she knows how to. “Lucy taught me.”

Peeta doesn’t say a thing against her, he never does. Instead, he looked over at Haymitch for help.

“Neither of you girls are going into the games if I can do anything about that,” He said, giving himself a loophole. “Now go grab your Ma, I think she locked herself in the bathroom.”

They stand, Kat grabbing Prim’s hand as she goes.

“Ah, not you, loverboy,” Haymitch grabbed Peeta by the shoulder to stop him from following them. “You and I are having a talk.”

She laughed at that one, even as Effie tried to scold him for his words and Peeta went pale. She had kissed Peeta yesterday as goodnight, and this morning she had been at his doorstep with a squirrel at dawn, asking his father if her boyfriend could get ready with her in the Victors Village. Mr Mellark had allowed it, though he had a dumbstruck look on his face while Peeta’s eldest brother wolf-whistled at them.

Ma was just fine in the bathroom, only wiping away the last traces of tears. Kat traded Prim’s hand for the tissues in hers with a little hum, then threw them in the trash. She’ll need them later, but not yet.

She came stomping back into the living room with a smile, “Da! C’mon, we’re gonna be late!”

“I’ll happily be late,” Haymitch muttered into his flask. Then he paused, frowned, and spat it back out into the flask. “Kat, what the fuck?”

She laughed and danced away from his grabbing hand, straight into Peeta who caught her by the waist. “Enjoy your lemonade! Happy Birthday!”

The lemons and sugar had been a bitch to steal. The train Effie comes on every year was always well-guarded, but all the peacekeepers knew her by now. Everyone knows her as Haymitch’s girl, knows her as Effie’s shadow.  She had pretended to miss Effie’s arrival by a few minutes and then taken a running leap on board, shouting her name as if searching for her. The peacekeepers had to chase her down a few carriages before Cray had cornered and snatched her up into a fireman’s carry that she couldn’t escape, unaware that she had filled her pockets with lemons and sugar cubes from different carriages as she went. Cray hadn’t even been angry at her, even if the Capitol Peacekeepers looked like they were ready to shoot her, and he had explained her presence to them. She had danced and twirled away the second that they had put her down after someone had gone to fetch Haymitch, and she had offered one of the Capitol’s dogs a flower from her hair. Everyone had quickly gotten that sickly-sweet sympathetic look in their eyes when Haymitch had lied through his teeth about how Kat couldn’t even tell them what day it was, even if the Capitol peacekeepers still threatened to flog her if she did it again.

Did Kat know what day it is? Oh, yes, the 4th of July.

“Do you think we’ll see fireworks?” She asked Peeta. “Tonight?”

“I think we’ll see the stars,” Peeta squeezed her hand, always delicate. She’s seen him carry a hundred pounds like its nothing, throw it around and break things like a human wrecking ball. He’s always gentle when she sees him. “You can show me your favourites again.”

She had a favourite star, but it wasn’t in this sky. She liked the Southern Cross, she could always spot it so easily, but it wasn’t in the northern sky. But Orion was always there, not even moving despite all the years that have passed.

“Yes,” She nodded. “Right here in the old therebefore.”

Ma had to seperate from us well before we got to the Reaping courtyard. She hugged us both tight and we all pretended that her eyes weren’t daring to mist over with memories.

“Remember: there’s nothing they can take from you that is worth keeping,” She told Prim as they waited in line. “Kindness costs nothing and gets you everything. Nobody is ever to blame but the system itself and those who willfully assist the system. Buttercup can’t sleep in the bed with you because their job is to catch mice. I’m Covey, and Covey girls are made of all-fire, and Snow can’t land on top of all-fire. Learn to sing every song and dance every dance before the world forgets them all.”

“Kat,” Peeta caught her attention so to motion her towards the station where a lady was waiting to take her name. He had to move to where the rest of the boys were.

“Oh,” She let go of Prim, gave him a kiss straight on the lips, and then stepped back. “Love you, Peeta, see you on stage.”

Peeta made a strangled noise as Kat herded a giggling Prim to the desk.

“He loooves you,” Prim sing-songed as they went to find their places. “And you looove him.”

“I’m going to marry him when these games are over,” She told her little sister. “And have a baby or two.”

Prim was giggling so hard that it was drawing eyes. Nobody was ever happy on the morning of the reaping, but once they saw it was the mad cat and her little sister, they turned away. Everdeen women go mad, she once heard some kids at school whisper. Gale had hit the whisperer in the head with the heavy math book and had to write lines for a week. 

“Don’t forget to tuck your tail when I go,” Kat kissed the blond crown before leaving to take her own place.

Prim’s not Covey, so she can get picked. Victors’ families are always reaped, just to punish rebels just a little more. 

Kat thinks that she might be the very last Covey woman in District 12. CC might be the very last Covey man. Snow might be a bit stricter on 12 than any other. Kat wasn’t sure.

Effie looked pretty in purple. Not as much as she did with the butterflies, but it was easily her second best color. She had told her so that morning when she helped stick down the edge of her wig that threatened to lift up.

The white paint on her, however, wasn’t it. She looked like a painting of Queen Elizabeth the first, a poster of lead and poison. Maybe it was lead? Lead in the water would explain the Capitol’s insanity. Didn’t they think Lucy Gray looked like a clown? Oh, they dress like Lucy now.

The Capitol is singing. Singing about triumph and victory and Effie is wiping a tear and calling it beautiful.

And then she’s not.

Effie has a slip of paper in her hand and she’s frozen holding it. There’s fear in her eyes, actual, real fear. 

Just like that, the Capitol has slipped up and shown its true colors. Not that anyone didn’t already know, but it has just opened Effie’s eyes rather wide, and she can’t ever close them again. Effie was always aware, has watched Haymitch in his own games, but now she had a personal stake in this, and she was going to crash out. Hard.

Effie looked back at Haymitch in panic, and Kat could see it in his eyes as he figured it out. Could see denial, fear, anger, guilt cycle on his impassive face.

The two older girls standing in front of Kat began to whisper, but it was the girl beside her that looked to Kat and then turned around to look at Prim that made Kat snap back into it. They were all waiting for the results, but they all knew there was only two girls who could make Effie Trinket and Haymitch Abernathy react like that.

Kat straightened her back and caught Effie’s eyes. She can’t hesitate and panic like that in front of the cameras. She gave her a slow, steady nod.

Effie’s hands were trembling as she called out, “Primrose Everdeen.”

It was like the whole distract froze and looked back at Prim, whose lip was wobbling. Prim didn’t make a single move to walk forward, however. Prim was looking right at her.

Covey girls don’t get reaped.

One peacekeeper reached out to grab Prim and force her up.

Covey girls can volunteer.

Katniss stepped out of line, ducking and weaving around the other girls, like steps in a dance.

“I volunteer!” Katniss called out. “I volunteer as tribute!”

Effie was crying silently, and Haymitch was standing, shaking in fury. They knew exactly what was going to happen next.

But they didn’t.

Kat marched onto the stage with her head held high, not letting the peacekeepers have a chance to force her up there. 

Effie swallowed back her tears and smiled, “District Twelve’s first ever volunteer: Katniss Everdeen!”

Kat had a smile on her face. She’s going to die out there. Kat is still smiling.

Prim is screaming, trying to get to the stage, but Kat is going to keep smiling. Little birds get sponsors; smiling, singing birds will make the Capitol love her.

She has to be loved. Loved and adored and interesting and loved. What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Stop, in the name of love. L is for the way you look at me. Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee…

No, no she has to focus. Her cheeks hurt from smiling.

“And our other tribute,” Effie had recovered faster than Kat, but she was good with protocol. Effie’d always been good at following little rules like that. “Is…”

She trailed off again, this time her panicked glance at Haymitch far more obvious. Everyone was muttering now, trying to figure out who it could be. Haymitch’s look back was more significant: he thought that this year’s reaping was fully rigged. 

“Peeta Mellark,” Effie finally said, taking a few steps back as Peeta joined her on-stage.

His eyes were so full of pain and grief and guilt that Kat wanted to grab his hand and take off running. They’ll be killed, of course, but it’ll be a quicker one than the arena.

But by stepping back, Effie had left the microphone free.

Kat had always been swift, quick on her feet like a real cat. She snatched it up in one hand while the other made to steady herself as she twirled away from Peeta’s grasping hand that tried to stop her. 

“I would just like to thank the Capitol,” She said, sickly sweet. “Because as a Tribute I get the chance to lose so much of me that is district. All you can take from me was never worth keeping. Thank you.”

Snow will understand, so will District 12, but the Capitol won’t. The Capitol will never understand what they carve and take away from their victors ( victims ). Kat’s thanks will be heard, loud and clear, by every citizen of Panem.

Her teeth are bared when she smiles, and she kept them like that as Effie and Peeta coax the microphone from her hand and the Peacekeepers forcibly guide her to the next room. 

Her teeth are bared. Nothing they can take was ever worth keeping.

Chapter Text

Kat turned the token over and over in her hands.

Haymitch and Effie were yelling at each other, uncaring that Peeta and Kat were right there, listening to them. Effie was demanding to know what Haymitch did to piss off Snow, Haymitch was insisting that he hadn’t done anything since his own games, and both had no idea what was going on.

Kat leaned back against Peeta. It’s comfortable to sit on his lap, just like how it was comfortable to kiss Madge goodbye and comfortable to hug Prim and comfortable to say ‘I love you’ to her Ma, and it’s comforting to be comfortable.

This pin was going to start a lot of trouble.

“That’s it!” Haymitch slammed his hand down on the table, making everyone shut up and look at him. “We’ll figure out soon enough what they think we did, but it’s no use tearing each other apart over it now!”

“It’s just bad luck,” Kat spoke up. That’s the whole point of the games. Anyone can get reaped. “Snow doesn’t know a thing.”

“Kat, you know the rumors,” Peeta rubbed her arm. “Prim only had her name in once. The odds…”

“Are in our favor,” She shook her head. “I was never going to get reaped, but you and Prim always were.”

Snow hates Covey girls, but he wouldn’t reap them. Katniss was destined to die quietly, unaware of the music. Prim, however, was just another child lined up to die at the Capitol’s hand. Peeta just had bad luck.

Sometimes, children just die.

Not today. Not these two. Kat had to do her very best to protect them.

“What do you mean Snow doesn’t know a thing ?” Haymitch snapped, body tense. “Kat, what did you do ?”

Had she done something? She doesn’t think so. Then again, Snow took offence to everything. To Tigris keeping him alive and fed, to his Grandma’am’s singing, to his classmates happiness and Lucy Gray’s independence. Kat had lived and breathed offence to Snow, but that didn’t mean she did something to warrant it.

“Kitten,” His voice had softened, and he was kneeling in front of her now, looking terrified with worry. “Can you please tell me what you did? I need to know what you did so I can help you.”

“I sang a song,” She told him. “One of the ones that Lucy taught me. She sang it for Sejanus.”

The song: Rebellion .

Kat doesn’t sing loudly, with memorable lyrics– although her rendition of Mamma Mia did spread around the school by accident– she made sure her songs were quiet. Her songs weren’t what was important. Nobody would report her songs, even if Peacekeeper Cray sometimes sneered down at her for singing them. 

“What song?” His patience for her had always been generous, but here she could see it was practically philanthropic. His hand was shaking, either in fear or in an itch for a drink. 

She leaned forward, and Effie and Peeta leaned in too, knowing that she would speak so softly that no recording device would hear them. “A song as pure as the driven snow. Before the rain turned cold, in peaceful white in District 12. Three dead, then a love lost in the woods.”

Terror flashed in Effie’s eyes as she wrung her hands together, “Did you sing this to anyone?”

“Just the songbirds,” She was honest. Kat is always honest because she has no time for lies anymore. “And the snakes. Nobody knows it.”

“And who sang it first?” Haymitch pressed, his hand coming up to rub her shoulder. “Who taught you that?”

Kat frowned and leaned back, “Lucy did. I told you, Lucy taught me to sing. Lucy taught me all my songs.”

“Who is Lucy?” Haymitch wouldn’t let it go. “You were calling the birds Lucy, but who is she really? This is important, Katniss. Whatever this Lucy has been telling you, however she has hurt you, this is really important that you tell me. We can–”

It took a moment for it to click. They thought Lucy had hurt her, that Lucy was some rebel using her for… a songbird? They called her Katniss.

“No!” Kat leaped out of Peeta’s lap, backing away from them. “I’m not Katniss and I’m not from District 12! I’m Kat and I’m Covey and I’m me! I’m not Katniss! I’m not!”

The two adults were white, seeing a ghost right in front of them. Ghosts are dead, though. Dead, dead, dead.

“Katniss is Pa’s daughter, and she’s dead ,” She spat. “I’m Kat. I’m not dead. They won’t kill me.”

Nine lives, right? She had one; now she’s on her second. She lost a little something in between the two, but that’s alright. She’s not a fool. She’s still got her songs.

“Okay, sweetheart.” Haymitch had his hands out, and Peeta was behind him. “It’s okay.”

She froze, “I’m not her either.”

Louella. Lou-Lou. Which one did her parents bury? Which one will her Ma bury? Katniss or Kat? Was there a difference? Did she have a name? What is her name? It’s been so long since anyone called her by her name, and she missed it. She missed it so much, but she has to be Kat now.

Haymitch is shaking, “Kitten, I don’t know how you know these things, but I know you know they’re dangerous to know, so I need you to stop singing, okay? For these games, you gotta be quiet. We can pass you off as a middle-of-the-pack tribute, and I can get you plenty of sponsors, but only if you’re quiet. You’re my little girl, Kat, no matter what. No matter what happened with Burdock and Lucy, you’re mine, and I want you to come home.”

She twisted her fingers, crossing them and then uncrossing them like making a promise. “Peeta has to come home with me. I told Prim I would marry him.”

Peeta choked, “We can do that, Kat. We can. We’ll toast, and you can borrow a nice fancy Capitol dress. We’ll do it before the games, even.”

Not before the games, no. She’ll find a way to bring him home with her, no matter what. Peeta is the Mockingjay, just as much as Katniss was.  

“I want a ribbon dress,” She told him. “Like this one, but in white with rainbow ribbons. I want to get married like that.”

Peeta smiled, softly and slightly pained. “We can do that. I bet Effie knows a great dressmaker.”

“I do,” Effie said. “We can get you the prettiest dress. Cinna would love to design it for you, and if you’d like, we can have you show it off to everyone.”

“Okay,” Kat sat back down. On the floor, but still, she sat. Seated, sat, listening, calm. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Haymitch said. “It’s okay to be scared.”

 “Should I be scared?” She asked him. Everyone is scared for their games, but maybe he can promise her it’ll be quick. Maybe her Da can promise her this.

“I think…” Haymitch wasn’t really seeing her, just for a second he was as lost as she was. “You should accept the probability of your death.”

“They’re going to bet against me,” Kat realized. Was it a realization? Not really, she knew it from the start but now it’s something she knows deep in her gut. Something she hates that can fester in her gut. Maybe, if she’s smart, she can be underestimated. They all underestimate her already. “I want them to lose all their money.”

Effie huffed, “Well, that’s one way to think about it.”

Haymitch just laughed. “I do, too.”

Kat grabbed Peeta’s hand and tugged him down to the floor beside her. The floor was the comfiest thing she had ever sat on, plush carpet over hardwood floors. “Can we make a plan now?”

“A plan to win?” 

“No,” She looked up at her Da. “Just a plan to make them lose.”