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[the_effect_she_has]

WHO: Katniss and You
WHAT: A week in the life of a Mockingjay
WHEN: Covering the first week of Haring
WHERE: All around Skyhold
NOTES: Warnings for possible suicidal triggers via music.

Katniss Everdeen is a young woman who does not like to be idle when it can be helped, especially when she is waiting to know where she can help. So if you are looking for the rather brusque 'Some Other Archer', you will find it hard to miss her.

1. Distributing Food and Supplies Through The Survivors

Skyhold has literally become the pilgrimage of hundreds who are seeking to flee from Corpheysus's reign of terror, who are looking for balance in a world gone mad without a Divine, or have lost their homes in one of the many wars blossoming across Thedas. Many of them came without a stitch on their backs, or food to feed themselves -- or their families.

Yet, in the last week, a tall young woman with serious grey eyes and dark hair braided along the side of her head has been handing out provisions - fresh meat mostly, and cleaned leathers and warm furs. Candles, cooking fat, and there are even healing poultices, simple things. She asks for nothing in return, and thanks makes her nervous -- but she is there almost every day to offer assistance where she can. Children make her easier - she brings them necklaces made of leather and small stones, and little toys made of bone.

Do you meet here here or ...

2. Outside in the training areas outside of Skyhold

Someone has taken the time to set up what can only be considered a crude archery training area, out of old barrels and crates, with targets painted on. But it's not just straight targets and dummies, no. It's practically an obstacle course - with the targets being at different heights, and various objects that one had to move around to get a clear shot. It's not just a test of accuracy, it's one of agility and of quick thinking.

Katniss trains here every day, practicing her shots in a dozen different scenarios. Up high, down low, jumping and rolling out of the way to make a shot. Shooting and moving at the same time, weaving between targets. She wants to challenge herself, that's clear enough. Against what? Everything, apparently.

Want to join? Want to gawk? Want to take your barrel back? Come and speak with her, unless you want to speak to her ...

3. Alone On The Ramparts

It's the song that will capture your attention. A beautiful, clear female voice will echo down to you as you climb the stairs to the ramparts, perhaps to go on guard duty. Perhaps only to see the stars. Yet while the voice will make you smile, perhaps, the song itself might just chill you down to the bones.

Or at least wonder who would sing such a song.

"Are you, are you?
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree..."

If you go hunting down the voice, you'll find it soon enough. Katniss is sitting with her back against the ramparts, looking up to the sky and singing upwards to the stars. As if she is trying to reach someone with her voice that she just can't seem to get to.

Will you come and sit with her, or pass by?

Comments

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss turned towards the voice - because it had a clarity of tone that just seemed ... otherworldly. She stared at the white vision before her, standing up straight with wide grey eyes. She swallowed, hard, before she whispered in Elvish, "Evanari? Sylaise, ma Mamae?"

She could not imagine Sylaise looking like anything but this - a glorious elven woman clothed in white, with hair so pale golden it glowed like silver in the dim light of the torches. Moving as if she did, in fact, tread atop the air.

[laurenande]

Galadriel trailed into the next verse before she realized herself and fell silent. At once she found herself face to face with the woman who'd been singing the dirge that still persisted in the back of her mind. She stood, wide-eyed and torn between either horror or awe, but her voice didn't waver as she asked her questions.

The words she said weren't Common, not so far as Galadriel knew, and their meaning evaded her entirely.

She had interrupted something, that much was clear, and Galadriel's somber expression took on a measure of apology. She pressed her hand over her heart and bowed silently before she spoke.

"Ánin apsene," she replied in as quiet a tone as this woman had employed. "I have always been drawn to song, especially those that are sorrowful. It was so simple to carry it as well...but I should not have. It is not mine to sing."

Galadriel drew herself back up and lowered her hand to her side. There was a soft sympathy on her face, then.

"Who is it that you mourn with so...unique a dirge?"

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss felt heat dash across her cheeks - no, no, of course this was not some goddess come back to help her people. How ridiculous could she be, how childish? The gods were ... long ago locked away. They ere not coming now.

"No I ... I am sorry. I thought you were - nevermind." She swallowed, folding her arms over her chest as she looked off. Her features tightened, with anger and with grief. "...It is ... not a dirge. It is a memory. A dark song my father liked to sing to us, to calm us before bed. I suppose if I am mourning anyone tonight, it is he."

[laurenande]

It was a surprising description, if only a short one, and Galadriel's confusion danced across her features. Sad songs were not rare, especially among the Eldar, and they were often sung for recreation...but to sing one so dark to children? To usher them to their sleep with a warning dirge? That was strange enough that it came as a shock.

Galadriel was silent a moment. Perhaps the notion that it was a lullaby had addled her, that or her curiosity had overwhelmed her tact, but she did not offer the woman her condolences. Instead, she asked a question that was, quite possibly, not entirely appropriate.

"...Singing about hanged men and their lost loves worked to calm children?"

There was no judgment in her tone, she was merely mystified, as though the very concept were one she had never considered. Truly, she had not, and as her expression turned contemplative she added, quietly.

"Your father must have had true talent," she said. "I would guess that you have inherited it. Your voice is lovely."

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well ... when you put it that way ... " Katniss couldn't help it, wry amusement flashed over her face before she explained, "In the summer months, when it was hot -- my sister and I were terrors because we were always running around, jumping, and it was too hot to sleep. My father sang us that song to calm us down, make us listen. Then, our mother ... while she was away from her clan, would tell us quiet tales of the deep, deep woods, and our people."

She looked up at the stars, "On the really bad nights, we would all go lay outside on a blanket, and Father would sing that song, as we looked up at the sky. The words were dark, but his voice was sweet."

A pause, and a quiet smile, "He did. He could imitate any bird in the Hinterlands."