Caged Nightingale [Hunger Games Fanfic]

Phobias (IV)

Cibophobia (fear of food):

Snow is up to something, is the first thing Seneca thinks when the President suggests that he take Katniss out to all the Capitol parties he needs to attend to, though it's more like an order under the façade of being a suggestion. Seneca has been taking Katniss out to them every once and a while with permission, to get her out and always to what she could cope with (though truthfully, he'd wanted her seen with him so he could make a claim and make the others see she's his and to back off, hoping that a more visual and subtly aggressive claim would help to warn her admirers to back down and lessen her load), but Snow seems to want her to be shown off in all of them, damn what she could currently handle.

So he asks Cinna for a dress for the occasion, the stylist eagerly comes up with another beautiful piece ("Please tell her I miss her and wish her well. Is she okay?" "I will and she is."), and she's being fitted in it by his own prep team, who have become as endeared to her as her own. They certainly joke more with her than they have with him, though they all get along quite well.

At the party, she's uncomfortably being moved around and she's smiling half in stiffness. The more observant Capitol citizens notice and make an effort to try to include her and help her relax, and she eventually does, and Seneca relaxes just the tiniest bit as he is grateful to those people.

Then it's time to eat and everything starts out fine until people started stuffing themselves and then taking a small bottle of clear liquid called Crapula, allowing people to regurgitate the food they'd just eaten and then for them to eat more.

He could see Katniss' face grow more and more stony the longer she sat there in the midst of it all, but she was completely quiet and kept eating her simple plate, not saying a word and acting like everything was fine and she didn't seem bothered.

He could remember the Victor's Party in Snow's mansion, where she first witnessed this, and the look of faint revulsion and absolute refusal to take part in it.

Even now, he could see her leg jerk slightly every once and a while, like she wanted to jump up and escape the room. Finally, he knows when she's had enough and is daintily dabbing at her mouth with a napkin and then standing up. Her eyes are like storm clouds and she gazes over everyone, voice aloft as her eyes are directed above their heads and refusing to look at any of them.

"I apologize, but excuse my presence. I don't think I feel so well."

Without another word, she leaves and doesn't look back. Seneca looks down at his half-eaten plate before he, too, abruptly stands up and all eyes are now directly on him. He can see some of their faces are varied from shock, discomfort, confusion, to even a few that understand.

"I'm sorry. Excuse me as well," he says briefly and he takes off and goes after her.

He manages to catch her in the hallway outside the dining room they'd left behind and he catches her arm.

"What is it?" she asks irritably.

"I know you are upset, but this is normal in the Capitol," he tries to calm her down, and in a way, it was as if he was trying to explain himself too –because he was one of them, a Capitol citizen, and truthfully he'd participated in these vomiting acts a few times before and hadn't thought of anything of it until now and seen how disturbing it looks.

"Normal? Normal?" she hisses out like an angry cat, or tiger more like. "That is not normal! That is revolting! You all don't even appreciate the food you've eaten! All you are doing is wasting food, eating and throwing it up like sport! It is a waste when there are people out there who suffer because they're starving and they don't have any food at all!"