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The first isn’t anything spectacular. There’s not much entertainment in hunger alone. The solo act is in full swing long before his gnawing insides stagger through the stadium gates.
Enjoy the show!
When the gong sounds, there is a rush. A particular weakness. Rough ground scraping against skin. The roar of a ravenous crowd. Intangible glimpses of something soft and shaped like home. And then—
He feasts on seeds now. Breaks their shells open, scattering the fruit far and wide. Drops them along the barbed walls and fences. Stomps them into patches of upturned soil. Wings carry his mission, and time takes care of the rest.
The earth is generous but the humans are not. Poison chokes the land, stealing the food before it even has a chance. White uniforms shoot like it’s a game. Sometimes they miss, but most times they hit.
It doesn’t matter. He always comes back to sow the earth.
⩤ ⩥
She’s not going in, and she’s not the only one. If they’re fast enough, it might work. If not, well . . . she’s been on borrowed time since the Reaping anyway.
There is power in having nothing to lose. It’s the most dangerous she’s ever felt.
They have a plan and everyone’s playing a part. She’s the distraction — but distractions are fickle, fleeting things. Spoiled people bore easily, move on quickly, and she was never much of a performer.
It takes longer than she thought, after the bullet tears through her. Life leaks out, slow and thick, while her glassy eyes turn to the sky and await their freedom.
When her old body stiffens, she dances through the air until time unravels.
As the white uniforms line up one last time and take their aim, she swoops down and tangos with them. They dip and twirl together until the bullets spin away from the crowd and toward the President’s Mansion, chipping away at the white walls before it can take its final bow.
⩤ ⩥
That damn seal is plastered everywhere. Flags. Buildings. Shuttles. Hovercrafts. Uniforms. Screens. He shits on every one he sees. Peels the paint where it gives. Tears down posters and lets careless feet mash them into the puddles until they’re nothing but pulp.
As the inevitable change rears its head, bodies begin to litter the streets. He sits with them. Sweeps soft feathers across whatever is left. Brushes ash off the mutilated faces, the singed hair, the miraculous eyelashes.
They have a certain look to them, in the after. As the essence seeps out. He could only feel it back then, pulsing from his makeshift morgue. But his new eyes are sharper and can see more light than before.
If you catch them at the right time, there’s a soft glow. Like a prism in sunlight, angled just so.
Once the dust settles, he pecks at the last flag until it falls into the rubble. Then, he dives into the clouds, carrying their light on his back.
⩤ ⩥
His body perches on branches instead of swinging from them now. He always arrives with offerings, no strings attached. There’s enough bread to spare if you know where they stash it — and, boy, does he know. It doesn’t raise many eyebrows here, stumbling upon stray bodies mysteriously sprinkled with crumbs.
He returns to the Capitol just once. To bring his Ma home.
His dear friend is sitting beside her when he gets there, in the joint quarters his father paid for. He wonders if his friend had a hand in their ends, too. They needed a new heir after all, and he did consider him a brother.
He knows the truth now. Jabberjays are tricky like that. They are still out there beyond the districts, sweet talking the mockingbirds and stirring up all kinds of trouble.
Still, for some twisted reason, he’s just glad Ma has a hand to hold.
She can’t see him through her eyelids or the window, but he can feel their hearts talking as hers weakens. It won’t be much longer now. He sets the crumbs on the brick ledge outside and waits. When they’re finally together again, Ma still smells like cookies and home.
By the end of the war, so many bodies have been torn to shreds. They soar through the shattered remains with their stale crumbs, blessing every shard.
⩤ ⩥
It would’ve been too convenient, if she revived with the same long beak that pierced her neck. But her talons are sharp and her beak is still a force to be reckoned with, so she figures she’ll make do. What she fails to consider are her wings.
Someone gave away her pin after she left. If it had to go to anyone, she reckons it should have been her.
She starts to see it everywhere, that pin. Tagging dark tunnels, etched in the rubble, stamped into soil, seared into bread. It disrupts everything it touches. Ideas spread like wildfire. The world ignites into something striking and new right before her eyes.
She flaps her wings, fanning the flames, until everything that brought her here is good as gone.
⩤ ⩥
Seeing her burns peek through the suit feels a little bit like dying all over again. That’s a lie— it feels a lot worse.
He stays as near as he can, betting on her until every game being played incinerates at her hand. Then, his new work begins.
Clothes are obsolete now, but the need for homes is abundant. Trees were scarce in the paved city even before the bombs uprooted them. But it’s a big place, and he’s got a lot of new expecting neighbors with nowhere safe for their young.
He spends his days scouring the rubble and waste, picking up every overlooked scrap he can find, and molds them into something beautiful.
⩤ ⩥
Their bodies move the same now; coasting through fog, diving into saltwater, feasting on fresh fish. They still look out for each other, but he doesn’t have to carry her anymore.
The bay window on the house beside the sea becomes their new stage. They entertain purely because they want to, no payment needed. Still, they are greeted with a generous flow of food that never seems to run out.
Big, sea green eyes follow their every move as they sing and dance and bounce and wiggle. The baby claps along whenever the tall one taps a rhythm on the glass. The pretty lady giggles as she watches him strut along the ledge.
It’s as close to talking as they can get, at least for now. The tall one is counting on it staying that way for a long, long time.
⩤ ⩥
The air is sweet as her soul releases the spear. She leaves in a soft song echoing through the trees. It’s a hearty tune, with arms strong enough to carry her the whole way home.
She grows into a messenger; singing out codes and signals and warnings until liberation blazes across the land. She can’t save everyone, but she saves some. The rest join her in the sky. She even makes a friend.
After it’s over, the pair visit the aching together. Balm their wounds as best they can. The songs may not seem like much, but they’re enough for the folks who hear them.
A hunter’s arrow locks on one of them in the woods until she realizes what they are. They watch her contemplate — clinging to the bow, arms ready to rise again and shoot. What’s the point of them now, anyway? What’s the point of her?
Their tune answers the questions she hasn’t spoken. Four notes swirl through the air, filling the woods with a promise of safety. A message only her heart would understand.
Her arms relax. She stares at them for a long time, trying to decide if they’re real or not. When her mind finally whispers their names, they fade into the trees and sing until her voice returns the calls.
⩤ ⩥
She flew far and away at first, after she sprouted her wings. Wove through the lush eastern mountains. Haunted the snow with her footprints. She stretched those wings as wide as she could until she reached the ruins up north and realized the others might be waiting by the time she got back. And there they were, exactly where she left them, right on cue.
They spend most of their time by the water these days. Doesn’t matter much where they are so long as they’re together, but this lake is as home as any one place can be. Sometimes, they gather near the dead fence for old time’s sake; tossing songs to miners and folks passing by who don’t know they’ve got a bit of music and family in them.
There’s a girl and her pa who stop by the lake when the sun’s just right. She’s a familiar little thing, sour and sweet like berries on a summer day. Splashing in the water, digging up her roots, indulging in honeysuckle, dozing in the bluegrass.
Her pa’s voice is smooth as a breeze when he talks, even smoother when he sings. The flutter of their wings cease at the sound of him. It’s a mighty nice treat for once, getting to be the ones who stop what they’re doing and listen. There’s no tip basket at the end, but they sing their gratitude in a chorus of encores.
He doesn’t know they’re her words, but they suit him well. When he passes them along to the girl, they suit her just the same.
One day, the girl returns to the lake on her own. Her pa’s there too, just looks a little different now. He tries talking to her, singing her lullabies, but her eyes are older and harsher and she doesn’t seem much like the listening type anymore.
A boy follows her there eventually, bearing that same sharpness and something else in his gaze. The two huddle in the small worn house with a familiar air of secrecy.
It lures her to the roof — that secrecy, her anguish, his fervor. She lands near the doorway, homed in on their words, ready to swoop in if need be.
And then she hears it.
Her head tilts, wondering if her own listening is rusty. It is winter after all; just the right time for a fire. But the girl goes on and— no, she said the name alright. Clear as crystal. Pure as . . .
Bombs rain down before anyone knows what hit them.
Except the critters, of course. Some of them have hearing like exactly what they are. By the time the hovercrafts roar into view, anything that knows what’s good for it is long gone.
Something in the wind pulls her forward. She’s not sure what. A call of unfinished business, maybe. A loose end that still needs tying. The others follow; land on top of a snow-capped mountain of rubble and let her go the rest on her own.
The stench of blood and artificial roses grips her like a vise when she finds him. There’s a hint of his poison, too. The same poison in the berries that started showing up in the woods where he left her. She waited until some rogue human was unlucky enough to become the solemn example. And she knew it could only have been him.
Ropes slither around his body now, shackling him to the post. She studies the wrinkles carved into his plastic face under the gray winter sky.
So, that’s how long it took for someone to bite back. Sixty odd years by the looks of it.
The girl’s there too, burned and scarred in the bitter cold, standing tall and unwavering before him. Bow in hand. A single arrow in her quiver. Her eyes are ancient and fierce and trained on something precious few others can see.
There’s a speck of time where even she wonders if the girl’s arrow swerved past him by accident. But she’s seen her shoot plenty. There are two things she knows about that girl: she doesn’t listen, and she doesn’t miss. If that arrow landed in the heart of the cold looking woman behind him, they must be two sides of the same coin.
A mob erupts when the audience realizes they’ll have to finish the job themselves.
She grabs a front row seat, landing on top of the post, looming over him. For the smallest moment, through the flashes of the angry fists, his battered gaze finds her. And he knows, just like she did. He knows it can only be her.
Oh, those pretty blue eyes haven’t aged a day. Still bitter. Still clever. Still scared as all hell.
It’s his own blood and laughter that drowns him, in the end. The brutality is just an age-old show that doesn’t know when to close the curtains. She can tell he’s gone when the cackling and gurgling stop and the air finds a clear path to her lungs again.
The cadence of his laughter echoes in her mind as she stands above his hollow body. There’s something about it, those last wild sounds, that bears repeating. The mockingjay’s instincts kick in, and she does what any other bona fide songbird would do.
In the dead of winter, she rises above the smoldering ruins, opens her mouth, and sings.