12th Game [voice/action]

[stillplaying]

[There are some nights where she can't sleep. Can't fall asleep to begin with, can't stay asleep once she's there. The nightmares become too intense. She awakes crying, screaming, gasping for breath. Curled up in a ball, clutching her knees to her chest in as tight a fetal position as she can get. And alone. So very, very alone in the dark, dark room.

Those kinds of nights have grown more and more common since Peeta's departure, since her death. Even Buttercup's plaintive mewling in the night hasn't made it any better. The pain and fear doesn't fade. It lasts long, long into the morning on the nights she's unable to go back to sleep. Turns into another fitful nightmare otherwise.

In one short month, there's been a lot to think about. Too much to think about. She's been stuck here a year now. Seen various shifts and experiments. Fallen in love and then lost that love. Died. In the most recent shift, while she hadn't been forced to fall in love against her will, she had watched it happen, even observed it first hand in once case. All of it, more than anything, had made her think of Peeta.

Think and mourn until she thought that she would burst from all the heartache.

During the early morning, she awoke screaming, thrashing in her bed as her nightmares played Prim's death out for her again. Prim's death followed by that of Rue's. And Peeta's electrocution in the clock arena. How she had screamed and rushed forward, how he would have been dead if not for Finnick's quick thinking.

So, so many deaths. And all because of her.

As she moves about in the bed, screaming and crying, she knocks the journal down on the floor. Buttercup mews and she just screams again, a wordless, animal scream. Whimpering and sobbing, she does eventually come to her senses. Her body remains cocooned in the sheets as she reaches for the journal, face tear-stained and lost.

She misses him. Maybe more than that, she misses having someone to comfort her in the night when the memories get to be too much.]

Gale was right. [The words are whispered, an acknowledgment to words long past that she once overheard. It's never going to be about love for her. It'll only be about who will extend her longevity in the end. Who'll make her life easier to bear. And if Peeta's not here, how could it possibly be him?

She stares at the journal a few minutes more before clearing her voice and finally speaking, wiping away any lingering tears.]

I know that when you die here, they'll take things from you. And they'll change things during the shifts. Hijack you and alter your memories.

Can you get them to do that even outside a shift? How would you contact them? I-- I want them gone. The memories of Peeta being here. I don't want to miss him anymore, miss--

[Being in love. Being loved. But she doesn't know how to say that part aloud. She wishes for a brief moment she had kept some of that candy from the spa. The stuff that made her open up more. It'd make this all the more easier.]

Is there a magic? Please? Something, anything? I don't have much to offer, but I am a good hunter. I'll trade game and pelts. Anything you want.

I want to move on. I want to forget. And I don't know how else to do it. [Richard's advice comes to mind. She's already thrown herself in hunting, thrown herself in anything and everything she can think of to distract her. It hasn't worked. Not at all. So that leaves only the other thing he recommended: moving on.] He might never come back. I might never go back. I-- I don't want to be lonely anymore. I want to move on.


[With that, she closes the journal to go get dressed. Her hair is pulled back in a messy braid before she heads out. Not to hunt. Not today. Instead, she goes to the library. She has research to do.]

Comments

[ action ]

[greenjacketed]

[ ...he witnesses the broadcast, but finds himself utterly lost for words. utterly damnably lost. sharpe can't dredge up anything that might help or else might make sense of what katniss is enduring. he remembers the feelings well enough, he simply never learned how to help someone else through them.

but in those wee hours of the morn -- as he listens to her questions while he's cleaning out his rifle -- richard sharpe makes a decision. it's the sort of decision he should ask katniss about before making, but he's not sure the girl would accept help that was merely offered instead of insisted.

and so -- by the time katniss returns to her house -- she may find sharpe kneeling awkwardly at her front door, prodding at it with a lockpick he so very rarely gets to use. ]

[ action ]

[stillplaying]

[She's gone most of the morning, not coming back until hunger gets the better of her. Spending time in the library has already risked enough social interaction. Going to the restaurant would only chance more.

With every intention to return to the library after a quick meal, Katniss makes her way back to her house. Her bow and quiver are carefully slung over her shoulder in habit, with a few books in hand. She's not paying that much attention to her surroundings, still lost in thought more than anything else.

But all thought goes away when she sees Richard kneeling at her door. She stops in mid-step and frowns.]

What are you doing?

Locked | Written

[complicatedliar]

I may be able to come up with something.

[Because it is always, always useful to have someone deeply in one's debt. And now that he's worked Saori's ritual on himself and gotten the shape of it, he thinks he can probably modify it here and there to be used on someone else, with their willing participation.]

Locked | Voice

[stillplaying]

[She stares at this response for a long, long time before finally replying. This is what she wants, isn't it? Something, some way to forget. To only remember the boy from Panem, not the boy she got to know here in Luceti as well.

Then why does she feel so hesitant?]

How?

[Voice]

[meanoldnut]

[Oak listened carefully to the whispered voice on the journal. She sounded so sad, so hurt... but her words justify those feelings. To miss someone, whether a friend or loved one, and knowing that they may never return isn't something anyone should be dealing with, even though it's a part of life. The Professor knows; he's been there, but he had also gotten over it in time. This is what this young woman needs, time and someone to be there for her until she has the strength to carry on]

The one thing you don't want to do is forget. [He says this in a calm and gentle voice] I know it's painful right now, but what will you gain forgetting the memories you've shared with him?

[Voice]

[stillplaying]

[She doesn't want to forget everything. Not the time spent in the arenas, not the way he had offered her the bread all those years ago. Not Snow's hijacking or how, despite that, he still saved her life the day she tried to take it. That she wants to remember. The important bits. The bits that made Peeta Peeta to her.

What she wants to forget is that look in his blue eyes the first time she told him that she loved him and meant it. The way it had felt to have his arms and body around her in the night. How the kisses and the hunger for him helped lessen the pain. What it was like when their relationship was actually real.]

It's been four months. [She responds quietly, blinking back more tears.] It hasn't gotten better.

[voice]

[halfnhalf]

[Teddy had been just about to head for bed, with Billy already asleep and waiting. But as he'd sat on his own bed and slid his pajamas on, he decided to do his nightly check of the journal, mostly just for hero reasons. If someone needed their help late at night, then he didn't want to just go to sleep on it.

That's when he hears Katniss' desperate pleas and requests, and that's when he feels his heart constrict in his chest. He wants to fight against it and say that time heals all memories, that they can be turned into strength. But with the way she is right now... Teddy's sure that that wouldn't help. And really, he wonders what it'd be like, if Billy went home, leaving him without someone to love or love him in return, with everything already piled against him...

He doesn't think he'd ask someone to remove his memories of him, but who knows, if it happened to him? So instead of going to Billy's room, he goes to his closet instead, hunting for his coat.]

Katniss, where are you right now? [His voice is hushed, as Billy is asleep and happens to be a pretty light sleeper on top of that.]

[voice]

[stillplaying]

[She sniffles a little as she reaches for the journal, Buttercup mewing again from his seat on top of it. It's not the first time the damn cat's made himself at home in her room. Since Peeta left, he's been a nightly visitor. As if watching over her during the night will keep her safe from harm, will provide him with some purpose now that Prim has left them both.

She scowls at the animal, batting one scarred arm in his direction. Buttercup hisses in response and swats at her before running to the other side of the bed. Hiding the journal isn't going to help her. Especially when she recognizes the voice coming through.]

Teddy?

voice

[fourthgenerationprincess]

I don't actually know a spell to make you forget. I just know one that makes you remember.

voice

[stillplaying]

[It's still too dark in her room, thankfully, for her to clearly make out the still picture that accompanies the voice. Though she's met the talking ponies before, it's been some time. And after all the nightmares, she would be more than quick to jump to the conclusion of muttation.

She sighs instead, still holding her knees tight to her chest as she rocked back and forth on the bed.]

That's not very helpful right now.

voice

[goldenglasses]

[Vash doesn't really know the whole story to what happened between these two, but he knows very well what it's like to miss someone who is gone.] Are you sure you really want to forget them that badly? If you miss them so much they must have been really important to you.

[Voice]

[stillplaying]

[He's not the first person to ask that of her. She has a sinking feeling he won't be the last. Is she certain? Does she really want her memories gone? How could she so willingly want to forget someone who means that much to her?

Now that the nightmares have started to die away, to say that all these questions haven't gotten her thinking would be a lie. In the dark, in between responses, there's been little to do but think.

Even then, it takes her some time to frame the right kind of response.]

I think it'd be easier.

[voice/locked]

[handing]

[Pepper doesn't know Katniss at all, really. She barely knew Peeta while he had been there. But he'd said something that stayed with her as he struggled with a difficult choice, and it seems relevant to share now.]

I don't know if Peeta ever told you this, but he wasn't sure about showing his work in the gallery--the paintings of Rue, specifically. He told me that she was killed, and he didn't want to put her on display. But he also said it would be just as bad for her to be forgotten.

[voice/locked]

[stillplaying]

[To hear this is unexpected. She had thought that she had finally stopped all the tears. That she couldn't cry any further, that there were no more sobs left within her. But hearing the woman's words catch her off guard. Causes all those tears to start flowing once again.

It sounds so very, very much like him. The same kind, thoughtful boy that she still misses so much that it hurts. It's always going to hurt, isn't it? The lack of Peeta in her life.]

She needs to be remembered. [It takes some time, but she finally manages to talk between the quiet cries.] All the victims of the Hunger Games do.

[voice]

[personafalsify]

... Sorry. It's been asked before. As far as I know, no one's... really managed it yet.

[voice]

[stillplaying]

[It's not the answer that she's hoping for. But it is a nice change from most of the attempts to dissuade her of this idea. That also makes it a little easier to respond to this boy.

Especially since his response does leave her mildly confused.]

The magic part? Or asking the Malnosso for help?

[Voice | Private]

[rather_be_surfing]

I'd be real careful of asking for people to mess with your head that way. It might bring you some temporary relief, but the cost could very well not be worth it, including losing parts of yourself you'll never get back if they're tied into whatever you get wiped out.

Won't lie to you; it's going to hurt, for a long time. Best advice I can offer if you don't want people hacking into your memories is just find someone to talk to until it passes. And find someone you can trust to tell about the dreams and what's eating you, someone you can trust to listen and maybe give you a different view on it. Help you get a different perspective and let you know you're not as alone as you think you are when it gets bad.

It won't cure you, but sometimes having someone to share the pain with can help. And eventually, you'll get to the point where you can manage.

[Voice | Private]

[stillplaying]

[For a long time after he finishes talking, she's quiet. Rocking herself back and forth in the darkness and just staring at the pages in the book. He said a lot. A lot more than anyone else has really said so far tonight. No stupid questions. No attempts at prying into her life any more than what she's already revealed in the journal tonight.

It's just a lot of words. Words from a stranger that really make her stop and think. Some of it is very reminiscent of the advice that Richard had given her previously. That it helps to have someone share in the pain. That she will get to the point where she can manage it.

She hasn't mentioned her nightmares to anyone. It had been simple enough to her: they weren't in those arenas. They wouldn't understand. Not like Peeta did. Does. Would it help at all? Make the nights easier to cope?]

Maybe.

[Voice]

[amberguardian]

It's not much, but I might know something that could help. The effects won't last long, but I can try a few different things.

[Kohaku would feel so bad if she couldn't be able to help a person with this kind of problem. She knows that feeling.]

[Voice]

[stillplaying]

[At hearing this response, she checks the journal again. Makes certain that there are no filters she might otherwise be missing. This girl's response, while similar to that of Loki's, lacks any secrecy. Any promises not to repeat to anyone the offer made.

That alone keeps her interested in the offer. She hasn't said yes to Loki yet.]

What can you try?

voice;

[ex_tessen852]

[That pain... it was something Suki knew. Even though Sokka was still around, she felt like she lost him and was only now on the road to recovery. But hearing the words she thought to herself over and over again since the break up stirred up emotions Suki thought were long gone.

It made it hard for Suki to speak, but she had to.]

You really don't want that. Trust me.

voice;

[stillplaying]

[She's never spoken to this girl before but in the morning light, she recognizes the picture attached to the recording. It's Sokka's ex-girlfriend, isn't it? The one he pointed out to her back at the winter ball. The one he had been engaged to before losing her, only to have her return without any memories of the time they had spent together.

The story Sokka had told her is one she had considered before. What would it be like if Peeta returned here with no memory of his prior time? Of what had developed between them? A relationship that had been real rather than faked for the audiences of Panem.

Those kinds of thoughts have scared her. And in a way, make Katniss a little reluctant to reply at first.]

It'd make it easier.

[Especially if what happened to Sokka someday happened to her.]

voice

[descrier]

[ There are weak moments where Marita thinks that it would be easier for her to forget those two years; where she wonders what sort of person she would be if it had not happened to her, but she knows — despite being a pawn — that it was the only way to help Mulder. It still haunts her at every corner, fueling her with paranoia and skepticism. ]

The grief of loss never entirely leaves a person, but... in my experience, while moving forward may seem impossible at first, it is much better than forgetting it entirely.

I cannot guarantee that either you will return home or they will return here, but experiences are a way of shaping a person. Would you really be willing to sacrifice your own memory to forget?

voice

[stillplaying]

[This woman isn't the first to ask this question of her this morning. And it'd be a stupid waste to wish she would, at least, be the last. But in the fear and grief spurred by nightmares, Katniss hadn't been thinking. Hadn't thought to refrain from asking these questions allowed, let alone put up any kind of filter. She had just talked instead, as if once again influenced by that chocolate from the spa.

She regrets that now. Partially. Because too many strangers have answered. Too many people unaware of a past she really doesn't want to explain again. Peeta and the Hunger Games and Gale and Prim and... and everything. They wouldn't get it. Why she always wakes up in the night screaming. Why she can't seem to let go.

Her voice is quiet, still weak, when she replies:] I want to.

[Voice]

[yourfononsarewhack]

[Love is somewhere on the list of things that Jade is comfortable with the fact that he'll never quite understand. And he knows for a fact how such desperate decisions can blow up in one's face. So he has no problem or remorse cutting through to a purely logical argument.]

I wonder if you understand how pathetic you sound, and how foolish your planned course of action is. Are you aware of how easily plans based on pure emotion can backfire? Not to mention that you're willingly offering someone to rearrange your mind as they see fit. Even if one complies with your wishes, you are putting your mental facilities at a considerable risk.

[Voice]

[stillplaying]

[It's almost a relief when his words trigger a different kind of response in her. The sadness and fear, still present and overwhelming, are momentarily masked by something else. Something just as familiar and, in so many ways, much more welcomed.

If this man, whomever he was, stood in front of her now, she wouldn't hesitate in hurling her bedside knife at him. Zevran has been a good enough instructor. She'd go for the kill. Definitely succeed were it her bow by her side instead.

But the man is not in front of her. Only a voice from the book. And the best she can do is scowl at him and let coldness drip from her voice.]

Damn you. You don't know me.

[voice] [I cannot untag this]

[not_a_troll]

[Well...well. Thats just...the most ridiculous nonsense Loki has ever heard.]

You really wish to forget the time you spent with the one you love?

By Odin's blistering sores, woman, I am afraid you misapprehend the phrase 'moving on' completely. Moving on is not forgetting, moving on is er..., moving on.

You move on, you remember them fondly and one good day you will see them again.

[voice]

[stillplaying]

[This voice she recognizes. A boy who pestered her once at that ball, whose damn animal screwed up her hunt a few days prior. A young boy, possibly around Aang's age. But unlike Aang, he doesn't speak with kind words and wisdom. Instead, he chooses to lecture her when she's tired of being lectured.

She had been stupid. So, so stupid to say anything on this journal. To hope that, in speaking the words aloud, she might finally find some sort of relief. If the continued nightmares didn't already feel as if they were drowning her, killing her, this added longing for Peeta does little to help. The boy doesn't know. Doesn't understand.

Eyes roll and she looks angrily down at the book. Right now, in the mood she's in, she'd physically lash out at him, too. But words are the most she has with a book between them. Words and cold, cruel tones.]

Go. Away.

[action]

[antivanleather]

[He was dressed and out the window the moment he heard the first sob over the network. It's familiar in a painful way- Katniss' misery. Were there anything that he might offer to rid her of it, he would, and that more than anything cements his decision to allow these connections. Tells him it's right, even if he finds himself helpless. It doesn't take long for him to find his way to her house. It never did. Much like the last time he ran to her he finds her before she's finished with her broadcast- though this time he has the courtesy to wait until she's closed the book to say anything.]

Solano... what. Would you like for breakfast?

[It's something simple, something normal, and not at all addressing what she asked the village. That's a discussion better had when she's better composed and he has a proper argument either for or against. He still hasn't decided.]

[action]

[stillplaying]

[It's easier to stay awake than to go back to sleep. Than to risk that more nightmares might haunt her. Her memories have only begun to survey the dead. There are still so many more faces, so many more scenarios her dreams can haunt her with. And that's without even touching the fictional deaths her subconscious seemed to love.

Teddy's since left but she's stayed rooted to the couch. Still wrapped tightly in the white sheet, still clad in nothing but her nightgown, hair still disarray. Buttercup sits on a chair not too far away as the light begins to filter into the room. But as soon as there's sound at the door, the cat leaps off the seat and pads over to hiss at the arrival.

It's the hiss that catches Katniss' attention.]

Stupid cat. [She mumbles the words as she slowly gets up from the couch, carrying the sheet around her like a cloak. She doesn't know who might be there. Doesn't really care. Katniss kicks at Buttercup when close enough and then slowly opens the door.

To see Zevran and hear his question. She blinks, confused.] What?

[Voice]

[thebellthatbinds]

[Sabriel would be lying if she couldn't admit to herself that ever since the Valentine's day Shift she hadn't wished she could have just forgotten the whole thing. To suddenly be given the joys of being in love, of really being loved and then to have it taken away? It was cruel, and it cut deeper than any knife could.

For a moment Sabriel considers the young woman's request, her eyes heavy on her bells hung beside her bed. It wouldn't require much, a toll of Belgaer could gather the memories then Saraneth to bind them away and...no, she couldn't. Shaking her head with a shudder she turns away from the bells and back to the journal. It was too much Necromancy, too dark, too risky...and no matter how much she understood Katniss' pain she couldn't use Free magic for this.

Sometimes a good intentioned act was all it took to set off powers beyond control. Maybe that's all it took for a true Necromancer to be born.]

In my world, the magic to do what you're asking for is used to hurt others, to change them into something they're not. Even if I were to try and do it for you, it would change who you are and I don't know if I'd be able to undo it without permanent damage.

I'm sorry.

I don't know what you've been through, but I know what it's like to miss someone so much it makes your heart ache. You are not alone, Katniss.

[Voice]

[stillplaying]

[But she is, she thinks. She's here so very alone. Clove and Cato are the only ones here who know what it's like. Who know what the Hunger Games are like. How terrifying it is to be trapped in an arena with twenty-three other children, all of whom want you dead so they can instead be the one to go home. To have fires and mutts and all sorts of deadly creatures attack you.

All for the sake of entertainment. All for nothing.

And even with Clove and Cato here, they don't get it. Not completely. Not like she does. They're Careers. Born and raised to achieve glory in the Games. It's different for them. She doubts either would really understand the nightmares she suffers through every night.

New tears well up in her eyes at Sabriel's rejection, however kind it's meant to be. She only wants it gone. The memories of Peeta being here. Another pain on top of an already long, long list.]

I don't care if it changes me. [She says it in a small voice.] It doesn't matter. I haven't gotten to be me in a long time, anyway.

voice;

[universal_charm]

_{[ Hey, he remembered you. That girl, he recognized your voice, from out in the woods when you had pointed a boy and arrow at him. Truthfully, he hadn't liked the look of you, but not to be mean or anything. Just... he didn't like seeing someone so young have a look like you. It wasn't right, you know? And this line of questioning - jeez, what happened to you kid? ]}

Are you sure you really want to forget? I know it probably feels like it now, but... once they're gone, if there is such a thing, don't know if you can get them back again.

voice;

[stillplaying]

[The voice is a little familiar. Enough that she doesn't dismiss the comment right away as more of the same. She hasn't talked to this man since the day she encountered him in the woods. It surprises that he does bother to reply. But then again, almost everyone she's met here thus far has been like this; offering help even when help isn't necessarily wanted. Or the sort of help you asked for.

She sighs. How many times has she heard this question by now?]

Yeah. [But there's bravado in her tone, hesitance. Each time she hears this question, she wonders just a little bit more.] It'd be better. Easier.

video/filtered

[relictusdeus]

[There are far worse things one might hope to forget, he muses, than a person coming and going from one’s life. Yet he can’t deny, deep inside, that his sister’s disappearance from Luceti months ago had gutted him, the same raw sobs and wild, desperate cries having clawed their way out his throat at the realization that she was forever lost to him beyond this cage.

He turns a distant look to the screen, irises as pale as the whites of his eyes.]

There is a way. [Thin lips pull into the faintest of smiles.] An escape from this... torment. 'tis merely a matter of how very desperate you are, my dear girl.

video/filtered

[stillplaying]

[When she remembers to turn on the video feed, it's to a darkened room. The outline of her face is barely picked up by the camera, ambient light shining off her dark hair.

She frowns at his words. It's the use of a pet name more than anything else that puts her at edge, even more than his strange eyes. She bristles at it. It reminds her just a little too much Haymitch. And Haymitch Abernathy would be the last person she'd seek advice from right now.

But she's still curious, if not cautious.]

What is it?

[Video]

[voidseeing]

Just forgetting isn't going to fix any of your problems. You'll never be able to move on by eliminating the memory of things that were important to you, no matter how painful they may be.

[He'd seen it happen before with Shu. Shu had subconsciously sealed off all of his memories of Lost Christmas and everything before that day, and what had that gotten him? In the end, he'd still had to confront the truth and all of the pain that came with it.]

[Video]

[stillplaying]

[Another one. Another person insisting that she's being foolish, that her thoughts are somewhat inane. She's so very tired of these responses. Her eyes close and she sighs, leaning against the pillows of her bed as if the weight of the world still weighed on her shoulders.

As if that weight would never, ever go away.]

Why not?