journey, 9. cbd2

All I wanna do is go to school, come home, practice my makeup skills, and try not to get shot in a random gang fight in this shit-hole district. Is that too much for a girl to ask? And that's not even on top of trying to dodge getting randomly picked for the annual death-games. When Dad kept banging on about Africa and heritage I was like Dad, we're from Nine. Our grandparents are from Nine, and their grandparents, and then he started talking about before Panem and the nations outside of the gates and I said I was going to be orphaned if he kept talking treason like that, but he didn't quiet down for a second.

Then Snow died and the new council got instilled and turns out they're okay with us speaking different languages as long as we do our work and meet curfews and send two kids to die each year. You still get the cautious ones who are nervous, waiting for the moment they tell us it was all a trick and we're getting our asses hauled to the DC - and maybe I'm still one of them. I certainly used to be. Back then I was younger and dumber and trying to stay on the right path, but I get it now. Dad's proud of who he is, who we are, how generations and generations of our ancestors have overcome so much adversity and we're still here, still on that journey - it's how I got my name, and he says I gotta carry it on.

I said I'd go to Saturday School if he bought me a new eyeshadow palette for Solstice, so I turned up on my first day at Africa class with the most poppin' eye makeup you ever did see.