stillplaying | 12th Game [voice/action]

[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.]

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[ She wishes she could help. ] I'll look around in the library.

[ But she feels uneasy about the whole thing, so she adds after a few seconds: ] I would never want to forget my friends, though. They're a part of who I am.

[The library. Why hadn't she thought of that? It's had helpful books before. Albeit, the last books she had looked for had been to help identify some of the stranger plants she had seen in the compound. But maybe there'd be something in there about memories. About forgetting.

But then the pony says more and she realizes, a little belatedly, that she's supposed to respond. It's not the same for her. She never really had a lot of friends until she came here.]

It's not like that for me.

Really? It sure sounds like he's part of you. Whoever he is.

[ She doesn't mean to be tactless, but... friendship is her Thing. It's her element. It makes little sense for her for somepony to want to forget their friends. Which is also why she's never bothered to learn a forgetting spell. ]

[She's probably right. Her words are probably a lot like those that Richard had once spoken. That Peeta had left a mark on her. They're words she doesn't like thinking about.

But by now, most of the responses have put her in a mood worse than the one she had woken up in. And so she just scowls and says,] It's complicated.

[ She shrugs, not that Katniss can see it. ] Well, a lot of things are complicated on the surface. The trick is to cut to the center to find the truth.

[ Chuckling selfconsciously ] Wow, I sound like Princess Celestia.

[Even if the pony is trying to be helpful, she really doesn't care. Trying to find the truth would require too much thought, too much self-searching for answers. She's tired of thinking, tired of anything that might lead to more pain.]

I don't want to.

[ Twilight knows somepony in denial when she hears one. She's certainly known Rarity long enough. ]

It might be able to help, though!

[She still can't bring herself to agree. Even if she did try to cut to the center of the truth, she doubts that it'll make any of this any less complicated. Maybe before the 74th Hunger Games. Maybe then her life had been simpler. But it hadn't since. And she more than doubts that it ever will be again.]

I don't think it will.

[ She sighs. ] Well, if you change your mind and want to talk, you can usually find me at the library. I'm helping shelve books there now. I just hate to see somepony as upset as you.

12th Game [voice/action]

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