stillplaying | 7th Game [action/voice]

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7th Game [action/voice]

[Action]

[The bakery is a mess. She never meant for it to end up that way. It just sort of happened. Flour covering hair and body, the smell of something burning from the kitchen, flecks of pink frosting teasing her cheeks. Peeta's normally presentable window displays are less than ideal; a poor attempt at recreating the alluring cakes that always caught her attention back in District Twelve. The frosting's melted from the summer heat on one that's sat out since Friday. Another is poorly covered with a grey color -- an attempt at mixing food dyes gone horribly wrong.

Ingredients for various baked goods have somehow escaped the kitchen, piled up on the counters, half covering the note cards Peeta had left for her. Cookbooks borrowed from the library lie open elsewhere, pages now far from pristine. Half baked pretzels stock the shelves along with burnt chocolate chip cookies. Deformed cheese breads and crumbled brownie bites still in their trays sit nearby. Even Buttercup, easily pleased by any free food, ignores the easy pickings.

She tried. She had tried so hard. Peeta had left her recipes. Had tried to teach her how to bake on lazy days when she was more content to spend time with him in the bakery than go about her own thing. It seems that every lesson has been forgotten. Any skill she might have had in the kitchen, utterly gone.

The rain pours outside as she plucks at the rock hard shortbread cookies she's recently retrieved from the oven, trying her best to peel them from the tray. It's a halfhearted effort as she leans her head against her hand and stares out the window. She'd rather be hunting. But it's been raining ever since Peeta left for his mission, raining so hard, all she's been able to do is check a couple of the traps in the river behind their house. And she had promised, hadn't she? Promised she'd look after the bakery?

Look how miserably she failed, the worry making it hard to breathe, harder to concentrate. Shouldn't he be back by now? Shouldn't he?

Every few minutes, she checks the journal for signs of life. Ignores Buttercup begging for real food. Glances at the door to see if Peeta's finally return. No luck. No luck at all. He's supposed to be back today. Why isn't he back yet?]

[Voice]

Why do you bother? [The words aren't meant to be recorded in the journal, but they are, anyway. It barely processes to Katniss that she's left it laying open, close enough to pick up any mutterings.] Going on these missions? Being a piece in their games?

It's stupid. This is all stupid.

[ooc: timed to after mission is over, when people start arriving home. but if you want to tag during -- feel free to have katniss in the bakery making a mess from friday on!

also, edit for warning of sexual content in the Peeta thread.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cinna?

[She's almost thankful to hear that name. Almost. It gives her a chance to forget everything else. Forget that he heard, for that stupid, stupid congratulations. Forget how much she still so desperately needed to harm Cato in revenge for what he did.

Her head snaps up and she's almost primed to strike Sokka instead. There's a threatening look in her eyes. The kind that promises retribution if her answers were not met. Forget that the context in which the name was used was completely and utterly wrong.

Distracted with events, Peeta never mentioned the fake name he used on the mission.]

Cinna's here? But... it's not time yet, is it? For the newcomers to arrive?

[It occurred to him he didn't pay attention to the names in that conversation. He just recognized... Cinna. That was all.]

I... but. Isn't Cinna the guy that, you know, you hooked up with?

No.

[She says the word quietly as pieces start to click together. She doesn't full understand, not yet. But for some reason, the boy thinks that Peeta's Cinna. Even though he isn't. Could never be. And the thought of... of doing that with Cinna is just...

...just...

...disgusting.

She shakes her head, frowning.] No. Peeta... Peeta's my... [Boyfriend. It would be so easy to say the word. And yet she stumbles.] That's Peeta. The boy in the bakery.

Where did you hear that name? Cinna?

It was the name he used at the Keep. We all had to use aliases, so... [A beat.] Yeah, I'm an idiot.

[He sighs.]

Mutual friend from back home, huh?

[She nods, glancing away for a moment. Cinna. Oh, Cinna, how much she misses him. Watching what he could do with a length of silk, seeing those wonderful creations that he would put her in.

Cinna, who died all too soon. Because of her. Because of the Mockingjay.]

He was my stylist in the Games. [A pause.] My friend, too.

Oh. I see. [Past tense was always so weird with people from home. He never knew if it meant they were just being treated as someone from the past or if they were gone for some other reason. Either way, he decided it was best not to ask.

But they were here to talk about something important, right? So he went to go sit at the stairs to the New Feather station. Collect his thoughts and stuff.]

So. The big question. Why go on missions, right?

[As he went to sit, she remained leaning against the wall. But she did shift her angle to face him. The frown is still on her face, a sad sheen in her eyes. Haunted, perhaps to enough of a degree to answer his unspoken inquiry.

She misses Cinna. Misses him a lot.

But that's not why they were here. Either of them. So she nods, trying to get back on track.]

Why do you?

I've been here for nearly three years now. Apparently I've been here twice before too. And I never remembered any of it. I see that happen to my friends as well. They just come and go and forget it all. A month ago, the girl I wanted to marry left here. She's forgotten this place too. But what happened here was important. And you're with Peeta now, right? So maybe you have an idea of what that's like. How important remembering that is.

Luceti has been here for almost five years. And it just happens over and over. People leave and forget. We just live here. Waiting for bad things to happen. Enjoying the good things when we can. But that's it. Maybe I was okay with that for awhile, because going home would be fine. I wouldn't have to fight for anything.

But I'm still here. So I go on the missions. I do what they tell me, because maybe eventually I'll learn something that will change everything. Or I'll get an opportunity to break free. I'm playing by their rules, but only because we both get something out of it. Maybe I'm risking injury doing it and I do get hurt a lot when I fight for them, but it's worth it. Just going home and forgetting everything that happened isn't good enough anymore. Things have to change here. Otherwise I might just come back and forget everything. That's not enough. I need more. I've killed too many people for them to just wait and see what happens next.

[Two days ago, there was a lot of fire in what he wanted to say. There still was. But there was a resigned sense of sadness present there. The idea was still the same. But he wasn't nearly so adamant about it. Especially with how long it had been preying on his mind as he prepared an answer for her.]

Edited 2012-09-12 04:27 (UTC)

[Two days can change a lot. Two days ago, she probably would have argued with him. Utterly disagreed. But two days does change a lot. And now she can almost understand what he says. Why there are memories he would want to keep.

Forgetting Peeta, forgetting this time they've spent together here is a frightening, awful prospect. Forgetting what it's like to have him love her, to be safe in his arms after being kissed all over. There's been no hijacking here. He's still every bit the boy she remembered from before. These are memories they've made without footage the Gamemakers can use to warp them. Memories they can both cling to if they're ever sent back.

No. She doesn't want to forget them. She wants Peeta to forget even less. The boy is right. There are reasons, many more aside from keeping Peeta safe on a mission.]

You're right. [She says it quietly, a minute or two after he's finished speaking.] I don't want to forget.

[He nods, glad that she seems to get it. He expected some kind of argument over it. But this is better.]

Forgetting is the worst part. [He turns away, stroking his beard.] Of course, most of us are just doing it to gather information until we can really screw them over.

[There's a small teasing grin despite the seriousness of what he had said moments before.]

[That's the kind of grin she recognizes. So similar to the look that would cross Gale's face when he would talk about rebellion. The sparks of a catching fire. It's somewhat contrary to the seriousness from minutes earlier.

She doesn't want to be curious. She has no desire to be a part of any rebellion ever again. But she can't help it. The question is on her tongue before she realizes what she's saying.]

Screw them over?

The Malnosso have done some pretty embarrassing things to me. And terrible, too. I'm entitled some payback fantasy.

[Though he needs to find out what person to punch.]

They're Gamemakers.

[What do you expect? That's really all there is to it. The Malnosso don't care about them, don't care about anybody but themselves. Experiments instead of entertainment, perhaps, but it's still all the same in the end. Being used for someone else's gain.]

I... I don't think they've made any games.

[Have they? He's trying to think here. He's seen the games in the Rec Center. Did they make those?]

[She shakes her head. It's been so long since she's mentioned the term to someone not from Panem. She almost forgot other worlds weren't as cruel. That they never had anything like the Hunger Games. Other struggles, perhaps, but nothing that involved exploiting children for the sake of entertainment.

At least, she hopes not.

For a few seconds, she resumes playing with the fletching of her arrow. Thinking. Remembering. When she does talk, she doesn't look up.]

Gamemakers were the people that designed and ran the Hunger Games. In Panem, in my home. Twenty-four children were selected to fight to the death every year. [She glances up now and rolls her eyes.] The highest form of entertainment you could find.

Edited 2012-09-20 16:25 (UTC)

[Some of the color drains from his face as he hears that. He's heard a lot of monstrous things, but this one ranks pretty high among them.]

... that's sick. What kind of monsters would be entertained by something like that!?

[She still doesn't know. The people of the Capitol, they're not all bad. They weren't all monsters. Cinna, her prep team, some of the rebels. Even dear, misguided Effie. They just don't know any better.

But that doesn't mean she's about to defend them.]

People who considered it fair penance for a war the Districts lost to the Capitol seventy-six years ago. People whose children would never be entered in the reaping. [A shrug.] I don't know.

They're wrong. [The thought of it makes him angry. Maybe because it isn't so hard to imagine. A life split between war and Luceti will do that to you.]

But you know that already, I guess.

[A nod. She's known it all her life. Promised herself never to marry, never to have children as to prevent subjecting them to the Games. But back then, she had never expected another rebellion. Never imagined herself igniting one of the sparks.

And never, ever thought she'd fall in love with Peeta Mellark.]

Peeta and I were both tributes. We won. [She hesitates just for a moment before continuing.] There are others here, too.

[Others, she says. Where everyone has to kill each other...]

I take it they didn't.

[She shakes her head. She shouldn't continue. She should change the subject. But that would never change her memories, her nightmares. The way the deaths weigh heavy on her, even when they weren't necessarily her fault.]

Haymitch won his. The fiftieth Games. But Cato and Clove... Clove was killed by a boy named Tresh. I- [She hesitates. But the words keep spilling out.] I killed Cato.

[... that's a serious thing to confess. Sokka has killed. He could never imaging confronting them afterward.]

... isn't he the one who was telling everyone about... you know?

[In the end, killing Cato had been an act of pity. It had been an act that also cost Peeta his leg. Her last arrow had been his tourniquet. But the mutts were killing him slowly. Too slowly. Hours and hours had past that night, listening to his pitiful whimpers. There had really only been a hunk of meat left when she had fired.

But a death is a death. Whatever the reason, she had been the one to kill him. The reasons don't matter.]

Yes. That's him.

[~~THAT'S SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE MOVIE~~ He has no idea what the situation was like. But he doesn't have to imagine it, anyway. Katniss? She looks young. Probably the same age as he is.

They're both too young to have to kill.]

That's hard. For you... for him. Wow. [He shakes his head.] But you aren't enemies here, right?

[~~SO MUCH WORSE~~ It was hard to see him again. Just as hard as it was to see Clove. Rue's presence here should have prepared her. But the thought of seeing them again, seeing any of the Careers, it had never crossed her mind.

She looks up at his question and nods.] We have a treaty.

[Remember who your enemy is. Perhaps Haymitch's best advice.]