the princess diaries i ♔ diana

Dear sponsor,

This journal came down with a bunch of other items that someone has sponsored me. A new weapon, some armour, a camera and this book. The other items are self-explanatory; someone wants me to stay alive, for that, I'll honour them by doing my best. But there is someone, someone out there, who is watching me and wants something else from me. A collection of feelings, memories, victories—and so I have decided to honour you by recording this diary.

Obviously, I'm not sure how long this will last. For starters, the pen could easily run out and I'm not sure I can find another one in these fields as easily as I'd like. I could also run out of pages, although there are a lot, but I imagine myself as quite the writer. A storyteller, a champion storyteller, just like I said I'd be for the people back home who are powerless under the thumb of the powerful. However long this lasts, I want to feel like I can open up to someone, well, something in this arena without them rising up with a weapon against me.

A diary can be a weapon too, and I plan to keep it loaded. But there is something about your own words that do not bite back; they have been tamed from the tongue. Softened, rounded out—I haven't swung a sword, not yet at least, but I imagine it requires the same strength as a stroke of a pen. I think swinging a sword probably takes less strength and less courage, actually, because emptying your heart onto a page shows vulnerability. It is exactly what this arena doesn't ask for.

What this arena does ask for, in fact, it probably would shout and scream for it given the chance, is death. That became far too real today, and I cannot seem to remove the ring of the first cannon from my ear. It struck like the final beat of a heart that tore through the world so easily, but so bitterly. Shockwaves up and down my spine, having to remind myself that love will make it alright, and thinking of a family who have just watched their own loved one sink into the sands of time. Everything was put into perspective—this is a game of life and death—but perspective is not the same as truth.

And the truth is, when I look at the people and places around me, I feel nothing. What I see is much more important, because even in the people who aren't my allies, I see people with something to prove, people who just want to breathe, people who are just like me. I'm not sure I have it in me to kill them; whether I'm Princess Di or Princess Die—I'm here to do good. I'm not a destructive person.

That's why when I knew someone had died, someone that I'd seen and brushed shoulders with had died at the hands of someone else I'd seen, I had to do something. We all are the same, we all just live in between the breaths we take. It wouldn't be right to just cast someone off so quickly, like Zion when he said that the cannon meant 'one down'.

A person is not a number. His head must be taking control and it worries me a bit—what if he becomes like tributes in the past who lose sight of themselves and that's it—they die a different person to the one they were born.

It isn't a case of 'one down', I don't want to ever get to a place where I think and feel like that. I know that I won't, because when that cannon sounded, it felt raw. An acknowledgement of death was all I could do in the moment after the murder; when I see the face grace the skies like a God from the heavens, I can do more. I can think clearer, act more appropriately. But for now, paying my own respects is not a heavy price to pay. It is an act of kindness that I expect nothing for, but that I can feel safe in.

Life is an echo. If I keep on giving love to the world, the world might love me back one day. Maybe Lex doesn't believe it is possible, but I don't think she believed coming back from the dead was possible either, and if the very laws of life can prove a person wrong, I almost certainly can.

The sun is setting now. The sunflowers have become darker, and on the ground, there are hundreds of their darker twins. It is still a pretty sight, one that I don't think I'd ever forget. There is something about this place that is the epitome of comfort—I think that if I make it back home, I'd like to have a few sunflowers in the garden. Nothing can replicate the awe and wonderment of this spot, but even just a fraction of that feeling would be more than enough.

I just looked up to the sky—I wonder if you saw it in the Capitol. If you did, that was me saying thank you.

I know that a diary isn't what everyone immediately thinks of when they think of how to keep someone alive, but I am thankful. You have given me the safety of my own company, and now I won't have to search for it in severity.

Better safe than sorry,