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i. One night, Katniss dreams of a primrose bush in full bloom.
The green and yellow in the sunlight of the dream seemed too bright, too vivid, and Katniss knew instantly that it was a dream.
The primroses swayed with a sudden wind and for a moment, Katniss thought she heard a voice in her right ear. She turned around only to see nothing but primrose bushes.
Katniss, they said, Katniss!
For a moment, Katniss panics and fears that the mutts are here, they are here in her dreams to maul her, mutilate her, tear her apart. But then the bushes say her name once again and she realises that it is Prim's voice that she hears.
Prim! she wants to shout but can't speak.
Without thinking about it, Katniss reaches out and grasps the small branches of the primrose bush in front of her. The branches are soft somehow and the sensation reminds her of handling Prim's hair almost every morning. Again without thinking, Katniss begins to braid the branches of the primrose bush.
It reminds her of mornings before the games, during a time when she had been happy and somewhat safe. Her mother would be boiling some water on the stove for some sort of tea or maybe to boil medicinal herbs. Katniss would be sitting on one of the beds and Prim would be sitting on the floor as Katniss braided her blonde hair.
The blonde tresses would weave in between Katniss' olive toned fingers and somewhere, in the back of her head, Katniss would think of her father doing the same for Prim or their mother. That soft blonde being woven by rough olive hands.
In her dream, the branches of green and yellow and brown melt into two braids of indistinguishable colour. As Katniss looked at the two braids in her dream, there was a thought of something missing, but she couldn't quite place it.
What's missing, Prim?, she wanted to ask but again could not speak, please tell me.
Katniss?, the bush said in a now confused tone.
Prim?, Katniss not-replied.
Katniss, you know what's missing, the primroses whispered to her, but Katniss did not know.
When the dream fades in a wash of green and brown and yellow, she wakes with the feeling of true hollowness. That hollowness that came from a lack of emotion that Katniss had become accustomed to in the weeks after Prim's death.
When Katniss looks around her room, she feels Buttercup's warm weight against her leg and sees the light coming through her window.
The colours of the primrose bush's braids are still behind her eyes when she dresses and goes out hunting that day. It's only when Katniss comes back home that evening, squirrels tied on her belt and while looking at the primrose bush Peeta planted, that she remembers: Oh. I forgot to add Prim's beadwork to the ends of her plaits.
The emptiness of the day turns into a fiery sadness and Katniss finds herself singing and sobbing once more.
ii. Katniss remembers Prim's single braid more than anything else.
In that crowd of devastated capitol children seperated from horrified capitol adults, it was her braid that had clued Katniss in that it was her little sister. There had been a thought, a question in Katniss' mind before the panic had settled in.
When did she start wearing one braid instead of two?
Then there had been the panicked scream ripping through Katniss' throat. The feeling of trying to squeeze through the bars of the gate somehow, the feeling of trying to reach her.
“PRIM!”, Katniss had screamed and her voice had felt foreign and strange to her own ears.
Prim had turned then and called out Katniss' name, just like at the first reaping.
Back then, Prim had held her, had tried to stop her, pull her back. Katniss had only told her to let go as she marched to what, she had thought, would be her death.
As the world turned yellow and orange around them and Prim's (single) golden braid caught fire, Katniss thought of that day. Thought of Prim holding her back from the stage and risking herself to save Katniss.
Let go, Prim!, She begged even as the yellow and orange scorched her skin to the point of numbness, Please, let go.
iii. It's months, nearly a year after Prim's death before Katniss accepts to step into Peeta's makeshift studio to see his paintings.
She knows what to expect, she knows that Peeta processes his grief this way. She's happy that he's painting again, of course, but she also knew that looking at those paintings would pull something in her and cut it up. So it takes a year for her to accept to look at the paintings.
The room smells of paint and what Katniss thinks is sage. All around the room, painted canvases sit on easels or on the walls or on shelves.
As Peeta leads her around the room, Katniss notices landscapes, places like the clock arena, his room in district 13, the old Mellark bakery, the meadow, etc. She sees paintings of people they knew, people who died: Thresh, Finnick, Boggs, Wiress, the female morphling and so many more. For a moment she thinks back on her recurring nightmare, the one where she is being buried alive by all those who died, and steps back. She wants to run away to the forest, but stays. She promised Peeta.
“You okay?”, Peeta asks her and hesitantly places a hand on her arm. There is that phantom pain where the burns are, but she ignores it.
Katniss nods and lets Peeta lead her to a section of paintings near the shelves. When her eyes land on the paintings, she freezes completely. There are paintings of Haymitch, Effie, Annie, Delly and one of Gale, but also there are more paintings of the dead: Rue, her dark brown curls decorated with white flowers and her face being the picture of peace. There is a painting of Madge, though Peeta has painted her facing away, Katniss knows that it's Madge. There is a painting of Peeta's brothers and father, all laughing. Most heartbreakingly, there are two paintings beside each other.
One is a painting of Katniss' father. He is standing right by an apple tree, looking up at the tree as mockingjays fly around him. Katniss reaches out to touch the painting and Peeta does not stop her.
It's incredible how close he's gotten to how her father looked. His long braid of dark hair, his hooked nose and the olive of his skin. Katniss gently touches the painting and tries to hold back tears.
Then she looks to the painting beside her father's and whatever strength she had, leaves her.
It's Prim. Prim dressed in a pretty pink dress and her hair tied in two braids, her beadwork hair clips and earrings are the same shade of sunset orange. She's smiling so brightly and she looks so much like she did before the Games – happy and young, like Katniss was still there to keep her safe. But now Prim was gone and Katniss could not keep her safe. Prim was gone and she was not even fourteen.
Katniss touches Prim's braids in the painting. She could see each detail, each mistake. She could even see flecks of grey in her blue eyes. Prim's hair in the painting was not a light blonde like Peeta or Madge, but a darker, honey blonde.
Katniss found herself back in their old home, brushing and braiding Prim's hair before bed. She would kiss Prim's forehead and Prim would insist on braiding Katniss' hair before bed. Katniss would let her, and with each passing month, Prim would get better at it.
Katniss could feel her face get hot with the force of her tears and felt Peeta wrap his arms around her shoulders. She leaned back into him and held onto his hands, lest she destroy the painting.
“I'm sorry,” Katniss' voice was so shaky, she doubted she made much sense, “But I can't– I hate these. So much, Peeta. I'm sorry.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Peeta's voice is sad, but not disappointed, “I just… I needed to remember them all somehow. I couldn't… I couldn't remember some faces and I was worried that I would forget more people if I didn't paint them. Dr. Aurelius said it would help. I wanted to give some of these to you, but…”
“They're beautiful, Peeta,” Katniss says, “But I don't know if I could look at them everyday without throwing them out the window.”
Peeta laughs slightly, “Haymitch said the same thing when he saw them.”
There's a pause as they look at Prim's face before Peeta asks, “Did I… did I get her right?”
“It's my little sister alright,” Katniss' laugh is so shaky, it could be mistaken for a sob.
Katniss feels Peeta's arms wrap tighter around her shoulders and then feels a wetness on her right shoulder. She squeezes his hand and feels more tears run down her cheeks.
Prim is still smiling at her and Katniss wonders if the Prim in the painting was in the middle of turning to her, because her braids are flapping as if she had just turned to see Katniss come home from hunting.
She wants to be there. She wants to be back in that scene; her game bag over her shoulder, her hair longer and tied in a single braid and that recurring relief every time she saw that Prim was there, she was alright. Prim was safe.
iv. When Katniss meets Prim for the first time, there is a deep feeling of protectiveness within her.
She remembers looking at Prim as a newborn, remembers looking at the small tuft of blonde fuzz on her head, her pink skin and her blue eyes, and thinking, She's mine.
Katniss could remember nights curled up in Prim's cot, her small arms wrapped around the newborn. She remembered spending hours trying to teach Prim to “Say Katniss!” only for Prim to say Mama, then Ka'iss then Dada (she had been mildly infuriated at that, but it hadn't lasted long).
Most of all, she remembers holding her little sister whenever she could. Prim's warmth would seep into Katniss' arms and Katniss would smile in wonder and awe.
This is my little sister?, she would ask herself, as if it was something impossible, do I get to braid her hair like mom does mine? Do I get to sing her songs like dad does for me?
There is something like wonder in her heart when Prim learns to braid Katniss' for the first time. It's a mess, of course, and Prim pulls the hair more than anything, but Katniss still gives Prim the biggest hug when it's all done.
Prim, her little sister, who she hugs close to her chest in order to feel that she was safe.
v. In district 13, Katniss misses a lot of things, a lot of cues too (but she thinks that may have been something that she always did).
Doctors say that it was due to her mental disorientation, more than anything, but Katniss suspected that it was more than that.
There were days where, if she wasn't wandering the halls or hiding in closets, she would simply sit on her hospital bed and wrap herself in her sheets and watch the people who passed by her bed.
She remembered Prim coming by after her lessons in order to keep her company. Had she been truly mentally present for those visits, or had she been somewhere else? Had she, once again, not been there to comfort her sister?
She remembered that at some point, Prim had begun to wear one braid instead of her usual two. The sight of that single braid had broken something else in Katniss.
The single braid reminded her of herself before their father's death. The time where Katniss' hair had been longer with the absence of grief and the presence of blissful ignorance. It was a happy time. It's only when their father had died, when their mother had gone, when Katniss had had to look at her slightly unevenly cut hair that her eyes had opened. It had felt like her innocence was a person and braiding her cut hair into a single braid meant saying goodbye to them.
She felt that sense of loss, once again, when looking at Prim, who should not have had to say goodbye to her innocence this young. She was still only a child.
You were a child too, Katniss. You still are, Prim would probably say.
Katniss shook her head at her thoughts and pulled Prim into a hug mid-sentence.
“Katniss, are you okay?”, Prim asked as she hugged back.
Katniss shook her head and hugged her sister harder, “I just… I just wish we had kept your embroidery and… beadwork.”
“Oh…” And there is a strong hint of sadness in Prim's voice, “Yeah, me too.”
“You know, I'm always going to try and protect you, right?”, Katniss asked with all the gravity in the world.
Prim pulled away just far enough to look her older sister in the eyes, “Yes, but what about you, Katniss? You need protecting too, you know.”
Katniss only smiled, but dropped it when Prim kept frowning.
“I'll try and keep myself safe. I promise.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
vi. Who is this person, without a sister?
It's a question that Katniss wants to ask as she examines her reflection. Her dark hair has been freshly cut to barely brush her jaw. Hazelle had been the one to cut her hair. The two of them matched now, which Posy had pointed out after wiping away Katniss' tears.
“You still look pretty Katniss,” Posy says to Katniss and pat's her hand.
Katniss doesn't respond as she stares at her reflection. She doesn't even know what to call this girl. Is it really her? Surely not.
She hears Hazelle only after she calls Katniss' name six times. Katniss turns her head to blink at her.
“We'll be downstairs with Vick and Rory for some tea,” Hazelle says in a softer tone, “Come join us when you're ready, okay?”
Katniss doesn't remember nodding, but she must have, because Hazelle is nodding too before walking out of the bathroom with Posy. Katniss hears the sounds of Posy jumping on each stair as they go down and turns back to her reflection.
Is it truly her reflection? Or is it the reflection of a girl from the Seam who had just lost her father and her mother in one go? That poor girl who had been forced to turn into an adult with the snip of her hair. That poor little girl who hadn't cried until she had looked at her reflection and seen her unevenly cut hair. That poor little girl who had cried more when she realised that her mother would not be coming to comfort her or fix her hair or make everything better. She was alone.
Except that no, that poor little girl was not alone. The bathroom door had opened and her little primrose had come in with her loose blonde hair and tear tracks on her slightly rounded cheeks.
“Katniss?”, her little primrose had said in her meek, little voice, “Did you fall?”
It's then that the poor little girl had realised that she had, indeed, collapsed on the bathroom floor. She nodded to her little primrose, who quickly came to hug the poor little girl on the floor.
Her little primrose cried as she held the poor little girl, and the poor little girl cried even harder as held her little primrose.
And now, as Katniss looks at her reflection, she sees another little girl. A little girl who is not a soldier, or the mockingjay. A little girl with no father, practically no mother and, now, no sister. Katniss watches as a tear runs down her cheek to her sink before she collapses to the floor and sobs once again.
She doesn't know how long she stays on the floor before the door opens. She lifts her head slightly and has some wild hope that it is her little primrose who is coming to comfort her again, but instead there is a stench of alcohol and she knows that it is Haymitch. Katniss lowers her head to the floor once again.
She hears Haymitch sigh before she feels him sink beside her and forcefully prop her up. She wants to yell at him to leave her, she even considers scratching him again, but she finds that she has no energy. She settles for letting out a weak protest.
“Yeah, yeah,” Haymitch grumbled as he picked her up, “I know, Sweetheart, but Peeta made some cheese buns for all of us and Hazelle told me to come get you anyway, so.”
Katniss doesn't fight him as they go down the stairs and into the kitchen. She also doesn't fight him when he puts her in a kitchen chair and pats her head.
There are an array of people at her table, including the Hawthornes (sans Gale), Haymitch, Greasy Sae and her granddaughter and Peeta, who pat's her shoulder as he moves a plate of cheese buns to her.
There is a heavy silence as Katniss only stares at the buns in front of her. She doesn't know what they want from her in this moment. She only wants to go back to the floor and stay there for the next foreseeable future.
Only, this trance is ruined by Vick, who says, “I like your hair, Katniss.”
“Don't talk about her hair, stupid!”, Rory elbows his brother for the faux pas and Vick shouts in protest.
“Can you two not fight for a full day, please,” Hazelle sighs.
“He started it,” Vick sniffed, “I was just being nice.”
“You mean stupid,” Rory said.
Vick opens his mouth to protest, but Posy begins making shushing noises which sound more like a song than an admonishment.
Haymitch yawns as he scarfs his cheese buns and Peeta laughs just slightly.
Somehow, a cheese bun makes it into Katniss' mouth and down her throat. Then another. And another. With each one, there is a bit of warmth in her chest. As if arms are wrapping around her chest in a hug. A tear finds its way down her cheek and she feels a warm, calloused finger wipe it away. She looks up to see Peeta eating his own cheese buns in an attempt to avoid her eye and she smiles, just slightly.
vii. There's that old feeling of wonder when she braids her children's hair.
It reminds Katniss of those old days when Prim's hair had been growing and Katniss had been perfecting her braiding technique. It had been somewhat messy, but her mother and father had commended her regardless. And Prim had been happy, so there was no harm done.
Braiding her daughter, Marigold's, hair is a reminder of that time. Though Mari's hair is dark and curlier than Prim's or Katniss' hair.
Katniss still braids Mari's dark hair into two plaits, just like she did Prim. She still adds the beadwork ornaments at the end of each plait, just like she had for Prim. And her daughter still turns to smile with her big smile and bright blue eyes at Katniss when she's done, just like Prim had.
That feeling of familiarity strikes something in Katniss everyday, but the ache is more warmth than anything else, which makes her smile.
It is the same with her son, Sage. Sage, who had inherited Peeta's curls, but Prim's shade of blonde. Sage, who looked more like Katniss and thus, more like Prim. Sage who, when Katniss braids his blonde curls, the blonde in between her olive fingers, reminds her once again of those old days.
Her children who, as they grow older, remind her all the more of her little primrose.