(Fun fact: Told you there would be epilogues, if you want to see something written about please do tell me. And I saw someone say this song was meant for Johanna, I more see it as Paige but still, put it in here since who knows, maybe you think that too.)
The sun shine filtered through the clouds over Panem, all was quite, tranquil…. Well….
“No! That’s not how you do this!” Johanna basically yanked the knife out of the young girl’s hands.
She was not the best cook either but she damned learnt after her family was killed, she needed to survive, Paige was much better but she was not here and she was left alone with the Snow…. Lets just say… It was not going well.
“You hold it like this and press down.” She shoved on her hand, the carrot slicing in two with a loud smack on the cutting board from the strength Johanna put behind it.
Paylor, THE president, with Plutarch as a help…. How could any of them think 7 was the best place to hide the girl in? Johanna needed to remind herself at least five times a day to not reach for the axe when the girl gave her a heart attack when she silently entered the room.
“Sorry.” Octavia said, fiddling with her fingers, a knuckle even popping from her prodding.
The simplest thing about this girl infuriated Johanna beyond measure, how she was unable to do the slightest of chores, how she wore her hair, how she looked at her, how she needed to keep her alive.
“Now do it right.” She shoved the knife back in her hands and turned back to what she was doing, angrily dicing the onion and once again thinking Paige had on purpose left the two alone while she had took the little Amy to sign her up for school.
The scariest of things in the kitchen? The axe stuck in the wall from this morning, the purely to remind the girl that she shouldn’t be here.
“When done, throw it in the pot, it will cook alone and you won’t burn it again.” She said, dropping what she cut in it.
“Why do you hate me so much?” A meek voice asked moment before Johanna could leave the kitchen.
“What?” She looked over her shoulder.
“You took the Capitol, you ended to games, you killed my grandpa, you have all you wished for so why hate me?” The girl spoke up for the first time, never daring to be the first to talk even two weeks in being dropped off at the victors.
“Why hate you?” Johanna rolled her eyes with a smile, a gentle head shake, feeling like it was Caesar asking her why she was angry all over again. “Of course I hate you, you represent everything I wanted to destroy.” She turned to her, walking up, Octavia instantly backing up.
She marched her to the counter, trapping her against it by just standing in front of her.
“You took my innocence, you made me kill kids while I was just a kid, you wanted to prostitute me and killed my family, you killed Paige’s family, you threw us back in the arena, you took her from me, you killed much people.”
“But that had nothing to do with me!”
“It has everything to do with you!!” Johanna yelled, making the girl flinch. “You will never be a Halavey no matter what she tells you, you’re a Snow and will always be a Snow, no amount of blood can wash that away, you are just as much to blame as he was.”
She scoffed, backing up from the terrified girl and marched out of the room, pulling the axe out of the wall on her way out.
She walked to hang it by the door, looking where Paige’s axe belt hand been hanging, despite the revolution over, the younger woman still carried it around with her, there were still loyalist attacks here and there.
“Better safe then sorry I guess.” Johanna said, hanging hers there, her district 7 axe was up in Paige’s bedroom which was technically both of theirs, Johanna long not having lived in her own victor home, even before all of this fiasco they were part off.
She was angry, angry at the world still, at Octavia…. And yet she sighed, rubbing her eyes.
“That was shitty… Even for me.” Out of everyone, she should know children were the victims of this regime, even if Capitol brats or not… But it had been bubbling inside of her and it needed to get out and she was not the most tactful woman, hell, she knew she had none at all.
She stopped hallway crossing the led in the kitchen, freezing in her steps.
It sounded almost foreign.
She peaked in around the corner.
The little girl trying to rub tears out of her eyes while biting her lips, shoulders pulled up, trying to muffle it in her sleeves.
Johanna just sighed, grabbing her own face with one hand as the other grabbed on that elbow, leaning against the wall as she listened silently.
——————————————————-
The accident was forgotten…. More like covered up, the second victor of the house having not caught wind of it, at least that’s what Johanna thought and hoped because it was not brought up in discussion but Octavia’s tear stained face and red eyes were not missable.Â
Johanna wondered why Paige hands said anything as she laid on her side, head propped up with her arm and tracing patterns on the sleeping girl’s arm, tracing each letter, all the 23 dead of the 71st staring up at her as the victor of it soundly slept.
She heard a noise, knowing it came from inside, a glass break.
She slowly got out from bed, walking out.
“–it, shit, shit.” She sighed, hearing the panicked mutter from down the hall, from what had once been Marcus’s room.
She crossed the little distance and twisted the door knob, opening it while holding the door frame as she leaned it.
The child’s horrified face stared at her.
Johanna just looked past it, the girl kneeling down and trying to pick up the pieces of a picture frame she knocked over, somehow.
She sighed heavily, walking in.
“I-I didn’t mean too.” Octavia said in fear, closi– Johanna smacked on her hands, sending the glass falling on the ground again.
“Don’t squeeze glass in your hands jeez.” She said, grabbing her wrist as she turned her palm towards her before checking the other and sighed again, no cuts, she was fast enough. “Up, on the bed.” She said, pointing at it, the girl scrambling to climb up as Johanna picked up the pieces of glass she smacked out of her hands and the others.
She lifted the frame, seeing a washed out picture of Marcus with Paige standing behind him and leaning her chin on his head with her arms around his neck while he held on them, they looked so happy, a smile Johanna knew Paige would never get back despite her smiling.
“I didn’t mean too.” Octavia said as Johanna stood the frame up on the bedside table again, pulling the sharp glass from it, leaving just the wooden frame with the picture. “I just… I couldn’t slee–” “No need to explain it.” Johanna dismissed her, holding the glass in her left hand and brushing her right over the ground to check for smaller shard which she was happy to not find.
Walking to the bin and dropped the glass in it before dusting her hands off.
“She won’t get mad.” She told the Capitol girl as she faced her, dropping her hands. “Paper couldn’t hold grudges against you for such a little thing.”
“B-but.”
“Shut up you stupid girl.” She picked up the blanket that was bundled at the foot of the bed, shaking it out. “She knows it wasn’t on purpose.
Octavia sat in tensed silence.
“Goddamn do I need to tell to do everything? Lay down.” The girl quickly did it.
Johanna shook the blanket once move and covered the girl up.
“There, now sleep.” She said as the girl watched her. “What? You want me to stay with you now?”
“W-what?! No, no!” She said in panic as Johanna grabbed a chair and sat on it backwards, arms crossed on the back of it and chin resting on her arms.
“Close your damned eyes.” Johanna grumbled. “You are what? 12? You still need sleep to grow or you will stay small.”
The child awkwardly looked at her before turning to lay on her side, her back towards Johanna.
“Why are you doing this?” She whispered. “You hate me.”
“I hate a lot of things, doesn’t mean that I want them damaged or hurt.” Johanna answered, silence filling the room, showing the discussion was over.
The victor sighed through her nose, leaning her forehead on her arms, this will be the death of her.
She looked back up.
“You’ll have a lot of work to do to leave up to the Halavey name that’s for sure.” She muttered to herself, not caring if the child was still awake or not. “And if it comes down to it, I do too… None of us should deserve it, we have expectation to reach.”
She tapped her foot on the ground.
“Lets hope for us both that we are worthy enough.”
Comment