Though now she lived in the districts, she was capitol born. She knew all of his hardships and never looked at him any differently. She handled him with such gentleness, and kindness. She was a rare bird, His Nightingale. Just like he had been for h...
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A shiver ran down Coriolanus's spine, and he could sense the rest of the recruits stirring.
"Run! Run, Lil! Ru — !"
The cry built and then seemed to engulf him, bouncing off the trees and attacking him from behind. For a moment, he thought he'd gone mad. He disobeyed orders and whipped his head around, almost expecting to see an army of Arlos breaking through the teeming woods behind him. Nothing. No one. Then the voice came again from a branch a few feet above him.
"Run! Run, Lil! Ru —!"
At the sight of the small, black bird, he flashed back to Dr. Gaul's lab, where he'd seen the same creatures, perched at the top of a cage. Jabberjays. Why, the woods must be full of the things, mimicking Arlo's death cry as they had the wails of the Avoxes in the lab.
As Coriolanus turned back to attention, he could see the disruption the birds had caused in the back row of recruits, although the rest of the Peacekeepers stood unaffected. Used to it by now, Coriolanus thought. He was not sure he'd ever be used to the refrain of someone's death cry. Even now it was transforming, changing from Arlos speech into something almost melodic. A string of notes that mirrored the inflection of his voice, somehow more haunting than the words had been.
Out in the crowd, the Peacekeepers had the woman, Lil, and were carrying her away. She gave one last wail of despair, and the birds picked that up as well, first as a voice and then as part of the arrangement. Human speech had vanished, and what remained was a musical chorus of Arlo and Lil's exchange.
"Mockingjays," grumbled a soldier in front of him. "Stinking mutts."
Coriolanus remembered talking to Juniper before the interview.
"Well, you know what they say. The show's not over until the mockingjay sings."
"The mockingjay? Really, I think you're just making these things up."
"Not that one. A mockingjay's a bona fide bird."
"And it sings in your show?"
"Not my show, sweetheart. Yours. The Capitol's anyway."
This must be what she'd meant. The Capitol's show was the hanging. The mockingjay some sort of bona fide bird. Not a jabberjay. Different somehow. A regional thing, he supposed. But that was strange, because the soldier had called them mutts. His eyes strained to try and isolate one in the foliage. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he found several jabberjays. Perhaps the mockingjays were identical...but no, wait, there! A little higher up. A black bird, slightly larger than the jabberjays, suddenly opened its wings to reveal two patches of dazzling white as it lifted its beak in song. Coriolanus felt sure he'd spotted his first mockingjay, and he disliked the thing on sight.
