Just close your eyes, you'll be alright

[etcircenses]

Who| Everyone.
What| A reunion.
Where| District 12, the meadow.
When|10 years later.
Warnings/Notes| Mentions of death. Please warn for anything in headers.

It seems an odd place for a reunion but someone must have decided it. Really, it’s not so bad at all.

The meadow stretches out far and wide into a forest up ahead and a town back the other way. The breeze flows gentle through here, rustling the daisies and dandelion, the katniss and primrose, the rue and bacopa, the tansy and chicory. A single willow grows at the top of the hill, and everything can be seen from there. The sun settles everything in a beautiful hazy gold. The air is sweet. The crickets are just beginning their songs and the birds are ending theirs.

A tent has been put up some ways down, close enough to walk to but far enough that the sound and clamor doesn’t all reach. The tent is tall and welcoming, chairs, tables, and open spaces for dancing set-up all within. It is here the reunion is hosted, offworlders and other friends of the rebellion invited here from all over Panem.

Food and drink is lain out, brought by the guests from all over Panem including Peeta’s bakery in the town. Musicians have been recruited to play the songs of the Districts, the old Capitol, even things from other worlds as best they can be duplicated. Dancing is encouraged and welcome in all shapes and forms. Few other performers are needed with a bunch like these; everyone here has been through much and come out the other side to know having learned and done amazing things. There are stories to be shared, jokes to be had.

Everyone is dressed in a casual best, whatever fits their comforts. Children are given toys, bubbles, and sparklers. Guests are invited to play only the most harmless of games. Painting is done, gifts are exchanged, all is kept light and merry, at least for a little while. There will be a memorial soon.

The party takes its sombers turns sure enough as memories are called up. For every step forward is the shadow of the past. Toasts are had, to losses, to victories, to freedom, to the future, and ever to those who didn’t make it, the names muttered one after another like a procession. Katniss Everdeen makes an appearance, seemingly having been called to sing. Peeta and the rest of the family are not far off.

The sun eventually starts to set. Much has changed in ten years. The Arenas are gone, replaced by monuments to the fallen. The Rebellion is over; the Capitol has been replaced by a more progressive government. All over, Panem and its Districts are slowly, but surely, being rebuilt for future generations untainted by the Hunger Games. But one thing hasn't changed: everyone’s presence here. You are all still here, even all these years later. And the memories of those gone are still here with you. Even if the nightmares still linger, even if some of those memories still dig deep, things work out in their ways.

The war is over, everyone is free. And so, for every terror hidden behind eyelids, the dawn still comes. It just takes a look around, to see who’s still with you. To see, that in the end, we will all be safe and sound.

Comments

Porrim | Open

[fusshionable]

For Porrim, the reunion is important. For many reasons, but mostly for the fact that there are so many loved ones she doesn't get to see with any regularity, and the chance to come together with all of them isn't one she'd miss if she could help it. So she makes the trip to Twelve, marveling at the differences in terrain from what she's used to where she's made her home in Five.

She's changed.

In some ways, the changes are visible. Her skin, which was once so smooth and perfect, is sun-darkened and freckled from long hours spent working in her garden, chasing around the children she's fostered—mostly war orphans from District 5. Her hair is kept short, cropped at her shoulders and rarely coiffed to perfection, and her clothes are beautiful but simple. If one didn't know better, you'd have no clue she lived in the Capitol for most of her life. She's reached forty with grace and dignity, and sometimes when she looks in the mirror, she's shocked at how much she resembles the Alternian woman known as the Dolorosa, from what images she was able to see of her. She finds herself, more often than not, musing on an existence she never knew, aching for a spiritual homeland she never saw.

But the changes go further than that. She's learned the value of so many things she'd never even considered before—of learning to grow her own food and enjoying the outdoors. Of working hard for its own sake, and of appreciating the aching in her muscles the next morning. Of watching the sun rise and set not from a Capitol rooftop or projection, but from the window of her cottage. It's the little things that really change a person.

She's brought a big, soft quilt to spread out in the grass, and it's there that she stations herself for much of the day, chatting with old friends and new alike, beckoning passersby to sit for a moment and speak with her. It feels like all of them are friends, comrades brought together by a common experience. Sometimes, she's even surprised to see the face of a fellow Capitolite, many of them changed in the same way she was. But by and large, she finds it's Offworlders she's keeping an eye out for. The ones she grew close to, the ones who changed her heart and inspired her to fight for the new world they're living in.

Anna | Open

[rediscover]

The years immediately following the war were the most difficult. Her deprogramming hadn't been easy; months and months of slow and casual brainwashing had been all too effective, and had really done a number on her poor nerves. But there are support groups and therapy sessions for her and for other soldiers like her, whose brains are broken in a way that's fundamental but not impossible to fix, and slowly but surely, she heals. The images of the war never truly leave her, nor will she ever be the same carefree girl she used to be, but Anna's grown to accept that this is her life now. She's not the princess of Arendelle, anymore. She's just Anna.

She stays in the Capitol after the war, which is terrifying, but she has Bro by her side, and they keep each other from feeling too unsafe in the shell of the old regime. They heal together, and start a family of their own, and after ten years it almost feels like a normal life again, even if they're still outsiders.

Now, here in Twelve for the reunion, it's clear that Anna feels out of place. She was never from here, this was never her rightful home, and even at thirty years old, she feels like an awkward little girl as she wanders around the meadow, her restless fingers picking flowers and braiding them into a chain almost without her realizing it. She smiles at familiar faces and old friends, but anytime she runs into someone she knew, actually knew, from the old days, she becomes a bit more like her old self. Cheerful and happy, even if it's hard to keep up for long, but glad to catch up on the past decade, to get back in touch with the people she thought she'd probably never see again. Her appetite is as healthy as ever, when she chances upon the food tables, and once she's eaten her fill, her eyes have a bit of their old life back in them again. She's liable to be even more talkative, if you catch her after that.

Phil Gray | Open

[voiceinthephone]

It's been ten years and every day never stopped being a blessing for a man who was supposed to die afraid and alone at Freddy Fazbear's. The scars that decorated his face have begun to fade away as more silver took over the still messy mop of brown hair. Each morning still felt like a gift for Phillip Gray as he got up at 6 AM and cooked breakfast for his household and the Foxtrot Bar and Restaurant. Foxy and Alby are old now but they still have some of that kit bounce, but they're not here for the reunion. They're at home, curled up alongside the hearth of a District 6 home.

It'd be a lie to say that the last decade had been easy for Phil to handle but he knew there was much to be done. Just as he's done all his life, his actions took him behind the scenes, making sure appointments were kept and people were checked upon. Though his time in the Games was shorter than some of the people converging into the festival, he offers kind words, an ear to listen, and a homemade treat he's donated. He mourns the lost ones with a solemn and silent prayer, keeping the memories as close as the friends and family he's developed.

Phil has worn many titles in these past forty-two years: waiter, manager, Phone Guy, victor, and rebel to name a few...but the one he's the most proud of? Father.

Meulin Leijon | Open

[furgood]

Kneeling to face her two eldest children, her hands flutter in precise movements, mirroring her words. It's all soft spoken, quiet instructions to mind the adults, keep an eye out for her and Da. They bounce on their heels, watching the games from the corners of their eyes but freedom is not yet within their grasp. She pauses, hands help up as if to say something else, and then grabs them tight, placing a kiss into Gamzee's hair and catching Nepeta's forehead. They wiggled and laughed and finally broke free, dashing off.

Her dress is brushed clean with both hands as she rises and looks out over the field. She hadn't made it to District Twelve in her travels. There had been plenty of places to go, places to write about and set novels in. She'd spoken to everyone, from those who had been Capitolites to the former Avoxes and everyone who had been between. There was still a twinge of uncertainty with the former high class citizens. A sense of fear perhaps, given how she'd felt, what she'd known, what she'd done. Not fear really. That yawning gape between control and helplessness. She tapped her fingers on her arms, took a deep breath. It had been so long. Sometimes she could forget. Most times, she simply had to exist with it.

She gravitates towards the painting at first. Her brushstrokes are careful, like she's writing instead of placing color, and her attempts are not exactly high art. She'd seen better. Seen a lot better. Her brush is set down, she steps back.

The reunion finds her later with a handful of flower chains, made in all the colors she could find in the meadow. When she sees someone she recognizes, whether from before or still sooner, from the times between, she leans up and gently places a flower chain on their head. Childish perhaps. It serves as a lovely greeting either way. Her smile at seeing them certainly hasn't changed over the years, even if the face its set in has.

Swann Honeymead | OTA

[cigne]

She's probably the easiest to peg as a Capitolite. A former Capitolite, some might say, but Swann has never let her pride crumble, not once in all the years. Not while she ran, not while she hid, not while she starved in the woods. She lied only as long as she needed to, reclaimed her name and her blood as soon as possible, and even now, living north of the Districts, in a small house in a small town, she walks with the air of someone who once had the whole world in her palm. Who refuses to let anyone take that away from her.

Her hair is shorter, only past her shoulders now, though it still shines bright and platinum like the sun. Her skin is still milky, even where there are more flaws, tiny crow's feet and visible pores and freckles across her nose. After all these years, she doesn't look much different at all, except that she seems less high-strung. Less frenetically happy, less absolutely driven to cater to everyone.

In fact, she's not catering to anyone at all, not even those she knew back then. She has better people to focus her lavishing on, a four-year-old at her ankles and an infant swaddled in her arms. Both boys have dark hair and heavy brows, sharp cheekbones and pouty little faces that leave no question as to who might have fathered them.

She brought them to prove the stories. That there are still people in this world who came from others, that Capitolite isn't just a made-up word, that even though there would be filthy Rebels here, there were others, people who had meant something to them.

Swann stays in the shade, mostly. Under a tree, in the breeze, holding her younger son while she watches her other chase around boys who are too old for him but seem more interesting than the children his own age. The baby fusses and she bounces him.