(and your head held high, my friend) [Neela's funeral](open)

[Lyn𝛿is]

∴∴∴
keep your shield before you
and your head held high, my friend
I'll bring my sword to join you when
the Prydwen sails again
∵∵∵

So many people came, you know.

Some of them protested when I'd invited them, of course, and said they never even knew you - but I'd told Satin to make sure she set out extra chairs, and to reinforce the fabric siding of the tent so it wouldn't get blown over by the wind and the rain. I figured for how you kept going on and on about becoming some sort of district hero, it would have been a disgrace to give you a funeral out in the cold that nobody attended.

But you don't have to be lonely little Neela sitting in the corner anymore. You don't have to be anything you don't want anymore. I'm gonna make sure you become more than that - don't you see? You'll be a symbol now. A martyr. You won't have to worry about being forgotten.

Your mother is taking it harder than anyone so far. You always took her teasing too seriously, and thought it meant she didn't like you, but I'm sure she did. Satin tells me all she does is pick on her, now that you're gone. You know, she was only protective of you because she feared the day you'd grow up and leave her - and you did leave her, but you never got to grow up.

Yet - that's why they will have sympathy, I think as I step up to the little podium at the front. You never lost that idealism, even in a world like ours - maybe that's why Ripred took you and left me, to remember you by. Someone to actually do something with all those ideas in your head you'd always theorize about and never act on.

So I got them all to come here - they'll listen to you now, Neela, or at least the ideas you had and the words you would have said. I owe this to you; I couldn't really say I'd been a friend of yours if I didn't become that voice, to carry on those words even after you have passed on.

"She was too innocent for a place like this district," I begin, addressing the assembled crowd. "The only thing she ever wished for was for everyone around her to be happy."

I can recall how you'd stepped unflinchingly onto the reaping stage, your gaze set past us and towards the horizon, as though somewhere deep inside you you already knew - as though you had foretold yourself being chosen.

"Yet even with that innocence - that childlike idealism - she bore with grace the fate she was given, the fate of being this year's sacrifice for District Eight. For all of us."

I wish I could speak with more certainty on who you were. I know that your favorite color was still pink after all these years, from the times you stopped by our little shop on the weekends, with a handful of coins to trade for skeins of yarn. I know that you loved to listen to the songs Jacob Brontz played on his violin, that you had five different ways you liked to make sock heels, that you wished my grandmother could teach you history as well as she had the honeycomb-stitch.

The rest I can only fill in with guesses.

You should've given this speech, you know. You should've been prattling on to me about how there ought to be a big eulogy for the tributes, and Dev you should do it you'd say things all better - but you'd have done it, if I told you I wasn't gonna take care of your own thoughts for you.

...so now it's up to me, if you're not gonna say anything.

"But we are not merely here to mourn. We are not here to mourn, because that would be a waste, to cry for her and move on with our lives. Because they took her, took someone who was never meant to survive in the arena, and tried to make her be cruel. And when it couldn't break her, it killed her instead."

And her killer - the one Stitch had allied with, after she spent so many days trying to protect him - it was his victory tour we were preparing for, it was for him that everyone was working in the factories for, to make displays and ribbons and gaudy Capitol decorations.

"So. We're not here to mourn, because we're here to fight. Because this is about more than just one tribute - it's for everyone here who works too hard, who struggles to put food on the table, who fears for their loved ones, because of them. And the only way to make them listen is to hurt what they value - to show them it's all a farce. Their celebrations. Their Victory Tour."

"They tell us, every day, how much we need them, but the truth is - they need us too. Without our men and women - without our workers sewing their costumes and their banners, they lose the stability and comfort they work so hard to maintain. As citizens of District Eight - we'll strike them where they'll feel it. Because this is for her - and - this is for all of us."

You would've been so proud.

lyrics: the prydwen sails again - heather dale

[kap]

Jamie BowmaN

District Eight

TAG: Lyn𝛿is . WORDS: 976. NOTES: N/A

I know it's hard to tell
how mixed up you feel

"Are you sure you want to go alone, Jamie?" Caitir asked of the young man.

"Yes," he assured her. "This is a different sort of funeral. I didn't know Neela. I'll be perfectly fine," he insisted.

He was right in saying that it was a different type of funeral, but perhaps he didn't know the true reason that it was really going to be different until he arrived there. Initially, he thought that the variation from the other funerals he'd been to, such as those for Zagreus and for C'rizz, would be that he didn't know the person, nor did he like the person, and instead of going there to mourn, he'd be going there to speak his mind to the family.

Caitir, of course, didn't know that. She thought that Jamie's reason for attending the funeral of a fallen tribute he was unacquainted with would be to give his condolences. Besides, that was the type of person Jamie had always been in the past. He'd always been compassionate and caring.

Now, however, he was filled with regret, anger, rage, and at this point, a want to speak his mind to anyone who would listen.

Neela Chiffon was not a good person, in life or in death. Jamie had decided on this. Whether or not anyone else would believe him on this, however, was a whole other story entirely. It would be a true task to convince anyone else that the one they'd come to the funeral for wasn't worthy of mourning or love of any kind.

Jamie wasn't normally the type to say that someone wasn't worthy of love, either.

When Lorenzo Moon had said something to that effect at his son Zagreus Moon's funeral, saying what was pretty much, or perhaps even explicitly (he couldn't quite remember at this point, but it still fueled his rage at that time in particular) that his son deserved to die.

Although, one should keep in mind that Jamie wasn't saying this. No, he wasn't going to be that cruel of an individual. He didn't want to be like the monstrosity that was Lorenzo Moon. No, instead, he was just saying that Neela didn't deserve love and mourning. That didn't mean she deserved death. Jamie would never say that someone he didn't know deserved death. That hit too close to home. The only person that he thought deserved death was Lorenzo Moon.

Well, and maybe one other person, but he wasn't going to get into that too much.

Regardless, it wasn't Neela Chiffon that deserved death.

Maybe she just didn't deserve the love and mourning that went along with death.

---

When Jamie finally arrived at the funeral that day, the words that were spoken took him a bit off guard. He didn't know the young woman who was speaking, but he didn't entirely know where she was going with things.

The only part that he somewhat agreed with her on, though, was when the individual said these words:

"We are not here to mourn, because that would be a waste, to cry for her and move on with our lives."

Although, Jamie had a feeling that that wasn't entirely what this young woman thought about the topic, especially when she moved on to speak further.

She wanted them to band together. She wanted them to strike.

To strike for Neela.

Jamie wasn't going to do anything for Neela, though. She didn't deserve it.

There was some clapping from others in the crowd, and, when it ceased, Jamie Bowman rose to his feet. Heads turned in his direction, and he was sure that people were expecting him to continue on with what the other individual had just gone on about. They, however, would be very much mistaken if that was what they thought. Boy, oh boy, how wrong they were.

"You say Neela wouldn't want you to mourn. You say that, perhaps, she'd want you to strike against what happened instead." He glanced around at the crowd.


"Perhaps that's true, but I don't care."

He paused a moment before speaking again.

"If it's what Neela wants, I don't want it. If it's being done for her, I don't want any part of it." The young man said this with a clenched fist.

"Neela Chiffon shouldn't have any mourning. You're right in that respect," he elaborated. "I, however, don't believe she deserves any attention. Why is this funeral being held for someone that doesn't deserve it?" There was a pause again, a swallow of saliva, another glance around the crowd that was looking at him, and then, more words.

"Funerals are for those that made a positive impact on our lives. They're for those that deserve love, and for those that deserve respect. Neela didn't deserve those things, in life or in death. The tribute from these most recent Games that deserved those things most was Stitch Gabel. He's the one that we should be rebelling for. We should be rebelling for the respectable tributes of the past."

A breath.

"If we're rebelling for past tributes of our District, let's do it for Stitch Gabel. Let's do it for C'rizz and Zagreus Moon. For Gillian Imberline. Hell, we could go as far back as to rebel for Kimmie Yov-Maoi." He said this last part as he spotted Remus, Kimmie's sister, among those in the gathered people looking at him.

"If we're rebelling for Neela Chiffon, however," he said with a stern tone, his fists still clenched all the while. "You can count me out."

At this point, the young man was standing on his chair, and now stayed there, his arms crossed over his chest, looking sternly at the woman who'd spoken before him, waiting to see if she could actually come up with anything to say.

In all honesty, Jamie was quite impressed with himself and all that he was able to say. He'd never spoken his mind to that extent before, but this time, he'd done it with ease, and, in his opinion, he'd done it quite well.

Hoping that what you need
is behind every door

ⒶⓀⒾ
lyrics: "Illusion" by VNV Nation

[Lyn𝛿is]

∴∴∴
keep your shield before you
and your head held high, my friend
I'll bring my sword to join you when
the Prydwen sails again
∵∵∵

Jamie Bowman's just about the last person I expect to stand up when I'm finished speaking.

I hadn't invited him here, actually. Granted, I hadn't really disinvited him, either, but I'm surprised when he shows up, and even more surprised that he felt like saying anything, given they didn't even know each other.

"Perhaps that's true, but I don't care."

But whatever I'd expected when he opened his mouth - an awkward condolence, perhaps, or doubt over the suggestion that we could begin a rebellion in District Eight - flies out the window by his second sentence. At this - at this farce of a speech he was giving, in front of everyone, about how much he didn't care.

What the fuck is going on in that head of his?

This wasn't the place. Whatever beef he'd had with Neela in life (which would have been news to me; she'd never so much as mentioned him before), she was dead now. The least we could do for her now is is to give her this hour of our time, as a memorial.

Slowly, though, my anger begins to transform into horror as he continues ranting on that soapbox of his, standing up onto his chair so he can tower over the crowd. Everybody's staring at him now, no doubt wondering what sort of heartless psychopath could stand up with a straight face and tell a dead girl she didn't even deserve a funeral.

There's a fleeting hope, in the back of my head, that the chair's going to tip over, and he's going to flail about and fall flat on his face. It would serve the little freak right.

"Neela didn't deserve those things, in life or in death."

Jamie ought to feel ashamed of himself, for even thinking such things. Of course, I suppose I shouldn't assume much better, for someone who considers Stitch Gabel as a friend.

I almost want to ignore him. To step down silently, and let the crowd's glares tell him all he needs to know, about what everybody thinks of that little display. But I think he'd miss the point, seeing as he didn't seem to realize he ought to have shut up and sat his butt down when people started staring in the first place.

"Everyone deserves to be loved, and to have their basic humanity respected. No matter how big of an impact they made." The words seem so incredibly obvious, when I say them out loud, that it's ridiculous I need to stand here and explain them. "And every death, whether we knew them or not, is a tragedy. If you don't believe that," I say, my voice harsh as I glare at Jamie, "then you're no better than the Gamemakers who killed her."

lyrics: the prydwen sails again - heather dale

OOC: :see_no_evil:

[Lyn𝛿is]

OOC: :see_no_evil: :see_no_evil: :see_no_evil: I love you Ryan and Kap, Dev's just being an asshole

∴∴∴
the distance between you and me:
the scale of my emotionality
my heart ain't rich enough
to suffer your reality
∵∵∵

I corner the boy during the reception - we really didn't need to end up making a scene, in front of the entire crowd.

"So, the silent weirdo finally found his voice, hmm?" I scoff as I catch up to him next to one of the long tables, before he has a chance to get away. "Shame it had to be for Stitch Gabel."

Stitch Gabel, respectable? If you ask me, he was nothing but selfish, and it makes me sick to think of her killer, his friend, coming up to District Eight and giving the same sort of stupid speech victors did every year.

I feel sorry for Jamie, that he thinks of Stitch as a friend.

"It's pathetic, how blindly you defend him - how you probably don't even realize that he'd never have done the same for you."

Of course, I can see he just has pretty bad taste in people. C'mon - some crazy obsessed dude who volunteered for death, his bad-boy cousin, and I'm not even going to get started on how much of a bitch Kimmie was. Then there's Gilly - odd, I suppose, but at least more or less pleasant.

"How you're so desperate, you latch on to anyone who's ever acted nice to you, even after we all saw that he'd abandon his allies in a heartbeat."

That was the sort of thing Neela used to do, when we were kids - she'd fall for people, hard, and spend all her time stumbling over herself trying to talk to them. Well, at least Neela had better taste.

"At the same time, do you ever wonder why people don't like you?"

I pause, just slightly so the words can sink in, but not so long that he might start trying to respond with some sob story, or a pile of self-pity.

"Because you've never cared about people. Because you can't expect to get love and respect, if you think others shouldn't have any."

It wouldn't be any use, trying to argue something like that. I can't force him to care, after all, but I suppose I'm doing him a favor, telling him the tough truths he clearly needs to hear.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, Jamie, but you're a monster."

Just like Stitch.

lyrics: no tears for strangers - falconer

OOC: kap