[To be warped by the world and unable to twist oneself into the shape of something kinder and pleasing and worthy of love, and sick of living a lie – -
These words, these sentiments cut far deeper than he means to allow them and for a moment it takes all he has not to snap the journal shut and set his jaw fiercely, pretending he hadn’t heard a stinging reminder of his own feelings from another’s lips.
He doesn’t know why he keeps it open across his lap.
Maybe it's because he can agree that it’s far better to be hated for what one is than loved for what one isn’t.
Sitting and gazing into empty space with worn, heavy eyes, he can’t help but remember Julia. How she’d begged and pleaded time and time again for him to search deep inside himself, so desperately believing there was something left untainted by bitterness. Some small trace of the brother he had once been hidden away past brambles and crumbling stone walls. You can change, she had said, even when he's shut down and his eyes would darken. It doesn’t have to be this way.
But it had been this way for a long time, and he's sure he’d have died long ago if he hadn’t changed. Though changing in the way she never had wanted.
Had he more of a moral conscience, perhaps he would feel disgusted with what Katniss had confessed. But he knows what it means to burn with a near-insatiable desire for vengeance and to see to it that other suffered, even those not directly responsible for his own pain. His hands dripped with blood of the lives he’d taken too readily and too willingly, and for reasons far beyond self-defense. He had killed and he would again.
All humans are beasts, he muses, and at least Katniss has it in her to be honest about it. That he doesn't open with a teasing remark is a form of approval.]
‘tis man’s nature to pass judgment, and very quickly. [His eyes narrow.] Let them hate.
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These words, these sentiments cut far deeper than he means to allow them and for a moment it takes all he has not to snap the journal shut and set his jaw fiercely, pretending he hadn’t heard a stinging reminder of his own feelings from another’s lips.
He doesn’t know why he keeps it open across his lap.
Maybe it's because he can agree that it’s far better to be hated for what one is than loved for what one isn’t.
Sitting and gazing into empty space with worn, heavy eyes, he can’t help but remember Julia. How she’d begged and pleaded time and time again for him to search deep inside himself, so desperately believing there was something left untainted by bitterness. Some small trace of the brother he had once been hidden away past brambles and crumbling stone walls. You can change, she had said, even when he's shut down and his eyes would darken. It doesn’t have to be this way.
But it had been this way for a long time, and he's sure he’d have died long ago if he hadn’t changed. Though changing in the way she never had wanted.
Had he more of a moral conscience, perhaps he would feel disgusted with what Katniss had confessed. But he knows what it means to burn with a near-insatiable desire for vengeance and to see to it that other suffered, even those not directly responsible for his own pain. His hands dripped with blood of the lives he’d taken too readily and too willingly, and for reasons far beyond self-defense. He had killed and he would again.
All humans are beasts, he muses, and at least Katniss has it in her to be honest about it. That he doesn't open with a teasing remark is a form of approval.]
‘tis man’s nature to pass judgment, and very quickly. [His eyes narrow.] Let them hate.