Katniss Everdeen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stillplaying) wrote2012-04-25 06:23 pm
stillplaying) wrote2012-04-25 06:23 pm
Entry tags:
3rd Game
[Action;
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.
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.
[Action]
It's possible.]
I don't know where Britain is. We're... [A pause. Talking about home is strange. Not something she does on a very frequent basis. But this is Rick she's talking to. Rick, who has been there. Whose helped District Twelve with rebuilding even when he had no reason to.] ...in North America. What's left of North America. District Twelve is in the Appalachians. The Capitol in the Rockies. And I know those terms are old. Very old. Names for places we've inherited. But we're not taught much about what came before Panem.
Just that there were wars. And destruction. Lots of it. And Panem was what arose.
[Action]
[Wars and destruction. Sounds about right - who knows if her world was a product of his, but frankly, it wouldn't be surprising. He remembers certain things. That her world wasn't that strange or foreign. It felt like it could've been reality, not just someone else's, but his own world's.
He shakes his head.]
Britain's across the ocean. They were allies. Needed help, but we weren't even really able to help them worth a shit.
[The memories are a bitter reminder, and he tries not to think about it often. But during the sleepless nights, all he can do is relive bits and pieces in-between restless sleep.
He breathes softly. The fire is still going. He hates being around it, but he's too ashamed of that fear to pardon himself.]
Hell, maybe it was over the moment it started.
[Action]
She stares down into the pot as the meat finishes browning and she adds the vegetables back in. Not much longer now. They’ll have their lunch and she’ll extinguish the flames. Maybe that’ll help. Maybe it’ll make it better for them both.
The girl who was on fire. There’s been far too much fire in her life.]
I don’t know if there’s anything across the ocean. [If there is, that’s been a Capitol kept secret. Would Thirteen have even known? But Plutarch hadn’t said there was. And he knew more of a time before Panem than anyone else she know.] Not anything that’s left. Or anyone.
I hadn’t even been to the ocean before the Victory Tour. [Her lips quirk to the left. District Four. Not a horrible memory.] It looked like it could go on forever. Did it? Was Britain very far?
[Action]
From my side of the map, it'd be about a 11 or 12 hour flight non-stop by plane. New York, it's about 7 hours, give or take. [He looks up at the lake, and tries to imagine the ocean in its place. He loved the ocean.] Most of the world is ocean. Land is just a little bit of it.
[He shrugs, smiling faintly despite the quietly formed anxiety it's blanketing.]
Considering our bodies are mostly water, maybe we're all part ocean, too, in some weird as hell way.
[Action]
It should've been easy for the Capitol to fly that far.
Maybe there really was nothing left in the rest of the world.]
You wouldn't think that in District Twelve. [Said quietly, sobered by the prior thought.] It's all land, land and mountains and forests, for as far as you can see.
[Action]
[And then he looks back up.]
Maybe someday I could go back, help out some more.
[Since. Y'know. It's either here, or some other world that isn't his. If the malnosso actually manage to pull that off.]
[Action]
But maybe Plutarch's right. Maybe Rick's right. Maybe now will be better. Nicer. A good place to live.
And she'd like to have him there, helping. She'd like that a lot more than she cares to admit.]
You don't want to go back to your home?
[Action]
Wait he's got it.]
I admit, I'd miss my family a lot. But I don't mind going this way or that. Even back home, I was never much good at staying in one place... Traveling has always been something I looked forward to.
Traveling to different worlds is just a bigger version of that, I guess.
[Action]
I think I'd like that. Having you in District Twelve again.
[Maybe she could even show him her lake this time. Her favorite spots in the woods they never got to because of her depression.]
[Action]
Maybe then I'll transfer from sniper rifles to bows and arrows. Who knows, right? I'm too restless of a person to sit on what I already know.
[Action]
Even without considering the rebellion, she shouldn't be alive. Not even yet eighteen and she should be dead. Some days, she still wakes up wondering why she isn't.
But thinking of someone else's future - of Rick's future - that's okay. That's easier. And it even makes her chuckle.]
We have rifles, you know.
[Action]
Hey, I could expand my horizons. I'll turn into a woodsman, live in a tree with your fellow squirrels. [Yeah, that allusion is never going to go away, deal with it.]
... Though having a rifle would be good, too.
[Action]
It's nothing she's used to. But something she thinks she could easily want. She even chuckles as she bends down to pick up her small canister of water.]
Rue's more like a bird. [A gentle correction, said in good amusement. She dumps the contents of her can into the stew and covers it. Then she takes a seat on the blanket near Rick, purposely placing herself between him and the fire.] Now it just has to cook.
[Action]
Ah. Speaking of Rue, and all that entails -
He pulls up the backpack, smiling.]
Right! I brought you something. Since I figured you and Rue'd be able to make more use outta' this than me, anyway. [That would he an snowcone maker; or rather, a strange plastic contraption with a turning knob on the top, to Katniss.] Wanna guess what this does?
[Action]
Haymitch would be shocked, wouldn't he? To meet someone who might actually like her. Truth be told though, she doesn't understand it either.
Still, she takes the device from him and looks it over, shaking her head.] I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before.
[Action]
Snow-cone maker. Not electronic, either--they didn't have one of those anyway. But now if you guys want to make some, y'know. Gives you a snack for the summer.
[Action]
He's rewarded with a genuine smile. A rare one, that lights her grey eyes. Smiles had been rare prior to the Games. In the past couple of years, they had become even rarer.]
Will you teach us?
[Action]
Hell, we could probably make these on our own, if we tried hard enough.
[Action]
And that's it?
[Action]
[Action]
Thank you, Rick.
[Action]
It's nothin'. Just don't break it until you at least get through one summer, huh? I'm not the best handyman in the world, so I'd only make it worse.
...
And maybe you can let me steal a maple snow cone or two. Y'know. So I know what it tastes like.
[Action]
He'd never have to steal. So long as she's here, he can have as many as he wants.]
You'll have the first one we ever try making.
[Action]
He can only itch the back of his head at that, looking relieved. Relieved? Yeah. He really didn't think he'd get to have any kind of feeling like that again. He's missed his family--and that feeling he only got from having that family--a fucking lot.]
Thanks.