paradisa | [Two - Right Through The Eye] [Dictated/Action]

[Guess who has found her way to the roof? Perfect place for brooding, as long as you get the right time slot. Luckily, it seems she has, because she has had it all to herself for the last hour as she finishes reading the last few pages of the journal from before.

Six months worth.

They told her - the veterans, the possible enemies, the hopeful friends. Read. Read back and see what you can glean. So Katniss had done just that, spending her days in silence as she read back to when they all received these new journals. Past the world changes, past the battles, past the terrors and tears. She read about all these strangers that were no longer here, and all the new faces that she saw almost every day. She read about Peeta, and Gale, Rue and Cinna. She read about Johanna, and felt her chest clench a little as she wondered if she was still here.

She read about Finnick, about Haymitch, and about Prim, and she felt her chest even more.

Then she read about herself.

It seemed odd, like she was looking at herself from the outside in. She saw so many choices reflected in her - ones that she would have made again, and others ... well. With time sometimes comes wisdom. If she had known then what she knew now -- but you couldn't go back. You could only go forward.

So here she was. So she would go forward, because to do anything else was to let herself go mad again.

She opened the journal to the first blank page, and started to write.]

I've been reading ... about our lives here. All since the new journals. And I - I need to tell you ...I'm further. Further even, than Finnick. Do you want to know? And if you do want to know, do you promise to keep it from Rue?

We should talk, you and I. [Yes, Peeta, she is seeking you out.]

[Here, her tone is lighter, but more serious.]

So. Wednesday is still good for you?

Hello there, Little Bird. I know you're off traveling. Save some good stories for me, all right? I miss you.

[She has a feeling that Rue needs to hear that, even more than she needed to say it.]

I. I just. [Why was this so hard? Why did it feel like choking whenever she was thanking someone for helping her? Why did it always hurt more than it felt good to know that people cared, had cared, still cared about her? That they had given so much time to her -- even when she couldn't remember them, she could feel all the same ... helpless gratitude.]

[Finally, she said roughly.] Thank you. For everything.

[And now ... now she speaks freely. Letting her words dot along the page, like animal prints.]

This place is poison. It always has been, and it always will be.

[She's quiet for a moment, pushing dark hair away from her narrowed eyes, before she speaks again.]

But sooner or later, you build up a tolerance, for poison. For every dark, evil thing. I know. I have. I let it dull me into compliance, because all I wanted was to survive. Then I woke up. And I'm awake now. I've been awake, for awhile now.

[She pauses, stalled, because words ... words were not as easy as tracking. As hitting a clean shot through a bird's heart. Still, she makes her words continue.]

I am not going to survive here. I am going to live. And the first step to that? Know my enemy. So I'm going to walk this castle. I am going to walk that town, that forest. Then I am going to walk that Dead Zone. Because every step, every new fact, is one more step to being alive, and not just breathing to breath.

[Okay. Just a few more words. Just a few more.]

And I'm starting, right now. You want to come, find me on the roof.