stillplaying | 3rd Game

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luceti

3rd Game

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Maybe they had caught on, these animals whose whispers she ignored when in the woods. She might not be the only hunter here, but she knows she's one of the more frequent. After all, she's out here every day. Sometimes she wanders further from the western lake but most of the time, she remains close to her treehouse home. Checking traps, gathering plants, losing herself in almost a ritualistic manner. It's the best way to keep memories at bay.

But on days like today, when game is scarce, it's harder. And she remembers. She lists the dead in her head, all the faces that haunt her in her dreams. The way they still all come together some nights to bury her alive. It's a recurring dream, always the same. Except, since coming here, she no longer sees Rue's face within the crows. It's the smallest of reassurances.

She's quietly whispering that list to herself, that list of all those people she's killed. All the deaths she's been responsible for. She has no right to be alive. She should be as dead as the rest of them. She deserves to be. And maybe that's what this is. Being back in a game again. Punishment.

But aside from that one awful shift, that horrible hijacking, it hasn't been so bad. And having Rue back... she doesn't deserve that.]

Cato. [The list continues as she continues to walk quietly in the forest, bow in hand.] Marvel. Glimm-

[The breaking of a twig stops her. She falls silent and looks around until her eyes fall on a young buck a few yards down, not even mature. The antlers are in velvet, barely little more than nubs sticking from the head. He looks as startled to see her as she is to see him. But a year or two older than any yearling. Perfect game. An arrow is drawn before she realizes what she's even doing.

There's only one moment of hesitation. When she remembers the last deer she brought down, with Gale's help, back in the woods of District Twelve. She's never attempted to kill one on her own. And a deer this size, it'll be too big for her to take back on her own. The amount of meat will be too much for two small girls.

But... she can think of people she's met here, potential allies, she'd happily share her meat with. Her arrow goes flying, piercing a lung. The buck bolts and her second shot isn't as true, hitting it in the midsection. And then she's running after it. It's not a long run. The animal stumbles over a log in its desperate flee and falls. She gets in one final shot, right in the heart.

There's a sense of grim satisfaction as she watches the deer exhale his final breath. Then she's on her knees, carefully removing and wiping her arrows. She places her bow on the ground and pushes the animal onto its back. She takes out her knife to make a small incision by the genitals. It's followed by a longer cut up towards the chest. Field dressing first. Then she'll request aid.

Voice;

So by the time she opens the journal, there are a couple of blood smears on her face. She looks uncharacteristically happy, though. Proud. She's never taken down her own deer before. It makes her forget any uncomfortableness that accompanies asking for help. She wipes some stray strand of hair from her face, leaving a small blood trail on her forehead.]

Is there a butcher in town? [An important question. Although she can probably butcher her deer on her own if worse comes to worse, she's never done it before. The first had been nearly attacked in the Hob, the other few taken to Rooba.] I caught a deer. There's so much meat. Too much for me and Rue alone. I'm willing to share. But I'll need help getting it to town, too.

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[He claps his hands together at that.]

Excellent. I've got a little something for you guys, too—I think you'll like it, especially with summer rolling in.

[He at least sounds confident in this.]

It'll be a trade.

[He's not much for owing or being owed; doesn't work on that system, really. As long as he's giving and the other side's giving in their own ways where they can, he's a content guy.]

[She's about to protest. To tell him that it's okay, that he doesn't have to bring anything. That she's doing this because she wants to. Because she owes him. Because maybe she might be on her way to becoming, if not a friend, an ally.

But the mention of the trade alleviates any protest. She can accept that a lot easier than a gift.]

Noon?

[there's a smile in the words that follow]

Noon it is; I'll be there.

[The smile is returned before Katniss closes the book.

As promised, come noon the next day, she's by the shore of the western lake. It wasn't hard to find the spot she had mentioned. The waters there had wound up being promising in roots and fish. She had a few snares set up and returned often enough to check on them.

But today, however, there's a small campfire going. On a mat not too far away lies some pots, berries, roots, herbs and, of course, the venison meat. As Katniss waits for Doyle to arrive, she tends the fire, careful to keep hair and sleeves out of the flames' range.

She was a fire mutt once and the scars from the skin grafts are still healing. Burns are the worst kind of pain.]

[They sure are.

It's kind of something he maybe should have predicted, that she'd cook on-site. It's pretty obvious, now that he thinks about it, but for some reason he imagined... food in a basket, Tupperware, something. He pauses a few feet back, staring down the fire.

It's not a big deal. He can handle a little campfire; it's not like it's a weapon or anything. He clears his throat, shoulders stiff, but he's smiling like usual.]

Hey.

[He's got a backpack on his shoulder and he's considering sitting. Any day now. Just. Give him a minute.]

Hey, Rick.

[And it does get a grin. Because of all the people she's met here, Rick's the first one she'll consider a friend. And it's not just because of that shift, the illusion of having an uncle. It had been nice to have someone to lean on then. But he was already proving to be someone who understood before.

He looks a little uncomfortable though, despite the fire. And it catches her off guard because she's not sure she's ever seen him like this. Not even when she's pointed her arrows at him.

Gently,] You can sit anywhere, you know.

[Oh... Right. The whole. Sitting down thing; should probably do that before the awkward levels would be sure to spike. He plops down, a little further back than her - but still close, focusing on her and her things. As long as he doesn't look at it he's fine. He can just sit and suck that babyish fear up, because he's a soldier, dammit all.

... That's just the heat, Doyle. It's warming you up, is all.]

One of those 'blanking out' days, I guess. Must mean I need to get more sleep.

Getting things started?

[If explosions had been involved, she'd probably react in much the same way. Those explosions had claimed Prim's life. Nearly claimed her own. Should've claimed her own. Instead of Prim's. It would have been nothing Katniss didn't already deserve. Her sister, though... her sister was innocent. All Prim was guilty of was being too eager to help.

Katniss, though. Katniss was guilty of worse. Of so many deaths.

But she doesn't question his hesitance to come close to the flames. There's an understanding there, and she wonders briefly if he might be some sort of fire mutt, too. He's never questioned her scars, though at the time he did see them, they had both been hijacked in that shift. Still, he could've brought it up since.

She rolls up her sleeves a little as she stands to get the tripod. Skin graft scars are still visible on her wrists and forearms, though a little more faded from the last time he saw them. She talks as she sets up the tripod and pot over the fire.]

I thought I'd wait until you get here to start cooking. Mind stew?

[It's particularly sad that he understands the burns, despite not having a single burn scar of his own; scars from other things here and there - an awful surgery for a broken collarbone, a few graze marks, one that actually met him through-and-through. Save for the collarbone scar, none of them were very prominent. Visible in the sunlight, but nothing really. Even the arm that had just previously been mauled was nearly free of scarring.

Ah well. Not such a bad thing. Scars can be uncomfortable. He's been fortunate.]

Sounds good to me.

[Scars from fire, he'd hate most of all.

Stew takes a little time to cook. He'd have to get over it eventually. Eventually. He itches his hairline, trying to internally quell whatever illogically sprang up. There was a lake, right there. Hell, that's water. That's fire's mortal fuckin' enemy.

Fire is outmatched here.

The flame crackles faintly, shifts just a small bit, and he flinches despite himself. He's looking at it, directly, and once again it's despite himself.]

[All scars previous to the Quarter Quell had been erased by Capitol doctors, who believed only flawless skin to be attractive. As tribute, and then victor, she had little choice in the matter. But now it felt as if her body was riddled with scars. Most stayed hidden by her clothing, including the ugly lump on her upper arm where Joanna had dug out her tracker in the second arena.

That one might never go away. But these? The ones from her skin grafts? They're Capitol work. And they'll disappear in time. But she doesn't care. Not when she knows she shouldn't even be alive.

As she waits for the pot to heat, she digs into her bag to find the mound of duck fat she brought with her. A glance in Rick's direction causes her to frown though. She remembers Finnick and his rope, how tying and untying knots gave him something to do. Something to distract from fear and worry.]

I have vegetables that still need cutting. The carrots, parsnips, ramps. [A bit of a grin.] And the katniss tubers. They'll need to be cooked first.

[Whether or not he realizes what she's doing, he doesn't give any indication, instead snapping out of his thoughts to look at her with a little lopsided grin.] Katniss tubers?

[The plus side - he's focused on something, now. Better than nothing.]

I guess the saying 'you are what you eat' is pretty accurate. I could cut all those for ya', then.

[He could do that much.]

[She places the fat near the fire to use when the pan is ready and goes looking for her spare knife and cutting board. Another grin.]

My dad used to tell me that if I could find myself, I'd have something to eat.

[She pulls the board and knife out and pushes them in his direction. The vegetables sit neatly on the mat not too far from the plate of meat, still whole.] You can use that.

[He smiles at that, before focusing his efforts on the task - actually, it did help a little bit. Not entirely, and sometimes his eyes would flick back if a crackle was particularly noticeable, or if the flame jumped, but it was better than nothing. Even the heat breathing into his skin was easier to ignore for the moment.]

Best job to give me, anyway. I can't cook worth a damn.

[Especially now that he doesn't touch his oven, period, but oh well.]

Anything straight out of a box or into a microwave tends to be on my diet plan.

Neither can I.

[It's not quite true. She can cook. But only very basic meals. And they're never as good as her mother's, let alone the food found in the Capitol. She's been cooking for her and Rue well enough.

But then, she doubts the girl would complain even if she wasn't.]

What's a microwave?

[As soon as she places the fat in the pot, it begins to sizzle. She takes a wooden spoon from the mat and begins to push it around gently, coating the whole bottom of the pan.]

My basic means of survival for the past 20 years. [A soft sound, humored.] It's a box that you can put food in to cook really fast - food that works with microwaves, anyway. You might've seen one in the houses or item shop.

[shrug]

For people who can't cook, it's a goddamn blessing.

[He pauses, wrinkling his nose.]

You'd probably think it's like Capitol crap you'd find. I'm not sure if they'd have it or not, but back home most people had one.

[It's really weird, being able to use someone's world as an example; little trickles of Panem, etched into his brain. The salute, The Capitol, Games, Districts. He doubts he'd be able to forget any of it, and by now he's made peace with himself enough over most of it that he wouldn't want to.]

[She thinks back to time spent in the Capitol. During the Games and Victory Tour, food either appeared in her room at her request or was served to them by the Avox in the dining room. She never saw the kitchens then. And during the desperate flight to get to Snow... to infiltrate into the heart of the Capitol, did she ever really stop to pay attention to the kitchens in the apartments? The food they found didn't need any heating or preparation.

So she shakes her head. She can't think of any Panem equivalent.

But she does remember how the canned food in the Capitol tasted nothing like the fancy meals she had grown accustomed to there.]

I don't think we did. [She steps away from the pot to gather what vegetables had been sliced.] We definitely didn't in the Seam.

Eeh, that's probably a good thing. Sometimes microwaves make food taste like crap. The real cooked stuff is the best.

[A short grin, as he pushes over what he's cut so far. He's still tense and perhaps that really can't go away as it is, but it's better than staring hollowly into the fire. He hates it, really, that he went from handling fire on a daily basis to being in fearful distance.

Couldn't even bring himself to get a lighter from the shop. He didn't bother looking at them.]

Seen anything else in this place that's particularly weird for you?

...

Besides the talking animals. And the vampires. You haven't had to meet any vampires, have you?

Edited 2012-05-17 18:29 (UTC)

[She shakes her head no in response to his latter question. No vampires, not that she knows of. The cross he had given her had been nailed above the entrance to the tree house. Whether it worked or not, she doesn't know. But it's a precaution she's more than willing to take.

Vegetables are dumped on top of the now fully greased pot and gently, she begins to push them around with her spoon. Sautee these now, the rest when Rick's done with them. Sizzle from pot and fire can be heard as she thinks on his other question. Anything particularly weird?

Her first instinct is to mention the wings. But then she realizes that they weren't weird. Not compared to some of the other augmentations she had seen in the Capitol. People with cat whiskers, green skin, animal tails. So no. Not the wings.

And the talking animals, she ignores. She has to, for the sake of her sanity.]

Magic, I think. [That sounds about right. There's definitely no magic in Panem.] Everything you can do with it.

No magic in my world either. Though honestly, maybe it would have made my job a little easier the last few months back home.

[Being able to manipulate wind? Healing? Fire? Those would have made a pretty huge difference. Too bad it's all comic book and fiction novel territory. He shrugs, putting the knife down.]

Or the last few days there, anyway. The place I was guarding was in a preeetty awful state. Dunno' if it'll get any better at this point.

[It's a shame. A damn shame. They'd almost done it - gotten everything fixed back to normal. Now... who knows. He fears the worst, but what can he do? It's not like he's going back to see the future. All he can wonder is if any of his friends'll show up here, give him good news. Or bad. Maybe both.]

[She looks up from the pot when he begins to talk about his Earth. One that came before hers, though she knows enough by now to know it might not even be that. It's been a lot to learn, of different planets and different Earths. Magic in some places, not in others.

What would the Gamemakers have done if they had access to all this?

But she knows about pretty awful states. Knows too much about it. Panem had been pretty horrible before the uprising. And what had Plutarch said? That maybe they were finally witnessing another stage in human evolution? That there would be no more wars and mistreatment?

She doubts it. But then, some part of him must still remember all this.] Why was your Earth so bad?

[He leans his arm on his knee, pursing his lips.]

It wasn't so bad... Well, it had a lot of problems. A lot. But it wasn't the worst place to live. I guess every world has its downsides, though.

[He's seen the worst society has to offer. Katniss would be better off not knowing about the sadder facts of his Earth. He shifts in his spot. Getting to the answer.]

There was an incident. Wasn't in my country, but it was overseas: one of our allies, Britain. They were working on something in their labs but it got out of hand - someone was bitten or scratched or some shit by one of the lab animals.

[Monkeys. It's always apes or monkeys with labs.]

It started a virus that spread all across Britain... It - It's like it took whatever made a person human out of them. When they got the virus, nothing was left but this overwhelming anger, and all they wanted to do was find uninfected people and take their minds away, too. Ran around and ripped into whoever they could.

... Eventually, the whole place was nothing but mindless bodies running around.

[Another pause.]

So... After they all starved and died, the government deployed me and a team to help Britain get back on their feet.

Edited 2012-05-19 23:06 (UTC)

[It sounds horrible. So, so utterly horrible. Worse than some of the Games she had been forced to witness over the years.

But it's not unexpected. Not knowing the Earth they had inherited. She doesn't know where Britain is, but Earth is Earth. And she does know for certain that he's from the past. A past where people didn't care much for the future. Where there were wars. Where they decimated a planet.

No. She's not so surprised after all.

The vegetables come out. The meat goes in instead.] Is that where you were before you came here?

[A nod.]

Our job was simple... Burn things that could, uh... be contaminated - couldn't leave anything to chance, that sort of thing. After a few months we were able to let people back into District 1.

[He actually pauses, furrows his brow. District. Haaa.]

... Anyway... I was assigned to watching everyone through my scope. I'm sure they probably hated getting peeped on, but it was to make sure nothing went wrong, really.

[He feels bad for interrupting some of the more... romantic moments. But he was gentleman enough to focus himself elsewhere, at least.]

[Eyebrows raise at the mention of a district. He has to remember some of it, right? Even if it's just vague wisps of thoughts. He remembered Twelve's salute.

But she has to ask. Because while Doyle might still have some level of her Panem, there's so much she doesn't know about the Earth that came before.]

Like Panem's districts?

Well... There was just one. We were planning on opening up more districts if things went well, but unfortunately, it all went to shit when we least expected it.

[He figures he knows exactly why she asked.]

You're wondering if our worlds have a connection?

[A shrug.]

I admit, it's possible... If the new infection reaches far enough, it'd cause enough chaos to change the world. I don't much remember anything about how Panem became what it was, though. Even before the Games, I can't for the life of me remember the stupid speech they throw at the citizens.

[Voice]

[Voice] shall we just do action spam here for the next day?

[Voice] sure thang!

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