It’s a jabberjay. I’ve never seen one before — I thought they no longer existed—and for a moment, as I lean against the trunk of the tree, clutching the stitch in my side, I examine it. The muttation, the forerunner, the father. I pull up a mental image of a mockingbird, fuse it with the jabberjay, and yes, I can see how they mated to make my mockingjay. There is nothing about the bird that suggests it’s a mutt. Nothing except the horribly lifelike sounds of Prim’s voice streaming from its mouth. I silence it with an arrow in its throat. The bird falls to the ground. I remove my arrow and wring its neck for good measure. Then I hurl the revolting thing into the jungle. No degree of hunger would ever tempt me to eat it. It wasn’t real, I tell myself. The same way the muttation wolves last year weren’t really the dead tributes. It’s just a sadistic trick of the Gamemakers.
(via peetaisms)
