stillplaying | 16th Game [video]

Entry tags:

16th Game [video]

[She's spent the last week hiding. Skipped guitar lessons with Teddy and archery lessons with Henry, barely showed her face in public. Most of her time was spent in the far reaches of the woods away from any areas she knew Sokka might hunt. When she could bother going on her forays. But in the past week, they hadn't felt quite the same. She hadn't been able to lose herself in the hunt as she normally did. Not when there was a fear in her belly that she might see him.

At least Gale had been smart. He'd put that space between them by moving to District 4. This town was too small. It lacked that space she had had in Panem. And because they had been so damn open about their relationship at Prim's party... People knew. So many people knew.

If there was one thing that Katniss couldn't stand, it was humiliation. She didn't want to see their pitying looks. Hear their echoed apologies. She had already had to go through that once. When she had lost Peeta, when her heart had truly broken. This? This didn't hurt as much. No, it was the mortification and the self-disgust that really bothered her now. At least she hadn't been so stupid as letting herself fall in love. But if it had gone on longer? If he hadn't had his death penalty removed, would she have?

Better to have them all hate her, despise her, than pity her. At least that she knew how to deal with, felt as if she could accept. Because they'd be right not to like her. All of them would be right. This likable girl her friends thought she was? That was a lie, only a part of whatever charisma it was she held over others. And today? Today seemed like the perfect day to do just that.

Effie's last post remained fresh in her mind as she turned on the video recorder in the journal. Her hair was neatly braided in its custom side braid. The mockingjay pin pinned high on the chest of one of her nicer blouses, displayed where everyone could see it. She stared resolutely at the camera for a minute before she nodded.]

Today, back in my home of Panem, would have been the first time in seventy-six years that a reaping of contestants for the annual Hunger Games would not have occurred. As many of you know by now, every year, on this day, the names of two children from each district - a boy and a girl between the years of twelve to eighteen years of age - would be selected to fight to the death in an arena days later. The Hunger Games served as entertainment to those who lived in the Capitol. People like Effie Trinket who didn't know better. An honor to those in the richer Districts, the ones favored by the Capitol. For the rest of us, it was a punishment, a reminder of the cost that came with rising up against our government.

[She took a deep breath, lips pursed together for a quick second as she remembered. She spoke without thinking. Determined, she only realized later, to take the heat off of Effie for her suggestion of games here in Luceti. Her mockingjay wings twitched behind her. But once she started speaking again, the words tumbled out. She held her gaze steady, grey eyes showing all the emotion her stoic expression hid.]

Many of you were angry when Effie suggested the idea of gladiatorial-like games here in our prison. But Effie was only acting like everyone else here, trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. Looking for something that would make her feel more at home. Just like the rest of us. You have no right, no right at all, to judge her for that. You don't know our world. You don't know what it could be like.

The 75th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, were the last official games held by President Snow and the Gamemakers. But they weren't the last Hunger Games. Because after the second uprising ended, after we won, the surviving victors of previous Games met. There were only seven of us left. Me and Peeta. Our mentor, Haymitch. Johanna, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie. We were given a choice by President Coin - the new leader of Panem, the leader I executed in revenge for my sister's death. One last Hunger Games, this one played by twenty four children directly related to those who held the most power in Panem.

I think the way the vote fell was obvious. Peeta and Beetee and Annie voted no. The better of us. Johanna and Enobaria voted yes. And Haymitch and I? We had the last votes. But he's as unlikable, as bitter as I am. I suspected how he'd vote. And I voted to kill those Capitol children anyway.

I am not a good person. Maybe... maybe I thought I could change. Maybe I thought I could put all this behind me. The Captiol, the Hunger Games, Peeta... But girls like me don't deserve to be happy. They don't deserved to be liked. Or loved.

So do yourselves all a favor and think before you make a judgement about someone. Because as wrong as you are about Effie? You're just as wrong about me.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[Now that's something to think about. But in the end, would he have done anything differently? Probably not.]

When I was seventeen, I murdered a man. Not to survive, not to protect someone, not because I was hurt and scared. Certainly not to change the world.

I did it because I got paid.

And maybe I don't deserve to be happy either. I have killed so many people for the highest bidder. But guess what? The world doesn't care what you deserve. So you seize what you can.

And people change. But it doesn't happen if no-one speaks up to spark that change.

[Wow no that's unforgivable? Horrifying, even? This is Silver's shit about how you have to kill people (or Clove's, or others he's heard) but times a million. Voting a bunch of kids to their death? But the weird thing is that it's an admission and the weirder thing is that this is some girl he was over at the house of a few months ago and whose sister he works with now.

And that's when it hits him - why is she saying this? And what's more, why is he hearing it? He doesn't know her at all, really. And then he looks around the entry, getting more pissed off as he goes (and has to listen to it on repeat a few more times) as he tries to find a filter or something. But ultimately, he doesn't find a filter. And even if the actions she's describing are horrible, something else pisses him off more in the immediate moment:]

What the hell're you doing?! Are you trying to cause problems for your sister or somethin'?!

[He knows he's no one to talk, with that Satan admission he made so long ago. But that, at least, was only to people it would matter to. Only his personal business.]

[She had expected responses to this. Maybe nearly as many as Effie had gotten to her own post about games. But, like with Effie, she expected the majority of the responses to be negative. Clint had been furious with her. So much so that Katniss had actually been worried for the other woman when she had agreed to meet Clint in person.

She would have expected him to be angry with her, too. At least Effie had only proposed gladiatorial games. Katniss had cast a vote knowing full well the consequences. Maybe others would have phrased it differently. Maybe they would have mentioned how the Districts were out for blood. How, in a strange way, this last Hunger Games prevented further bloodshed and war.

But that would only make her image look a little less tarnished.

She listened carefully to Clint's words, frown deepening just a little.] You were an assassin?

[Clint nods, still looking serious. It's not exactly a time for levity.]

Yeah. A damn good one. For a good few years. Didn't care who I used my skills for and you know that I don't miss.

Still kind of am honestly. Just maybe for better reasons now. Killing in the service of peace sounds pretty crazy, doesn't it?

It had been a week since Katniss had thrust his buttons back into his hands. A week since she'd drawn back into herself in a way Sharpe had never quite known -- for the last time she'd lost someone, regardless of how, had been before he knew her. And for that whole week, he hadn't dared to mend his empty jacket. The silver buttons stood on the stand next to his bed -- some of them regimental, and some of them spares he'd picked up in a small shop in Lisbon.

And in that week, he'd done little but brood all on his own. Wondering if, perhaps, he ought to have spoken up. Perhaps he should have played the villain and split the pair up long before this could have happened. Bugger it, he was not cut out to play the patriarch. He was good for a small scope of things: killing and leading men to the fight and bowling fiendish at cricket. But this strange pseudo-fatherhood? Maybe it wasn't for him. Maybe both the lasses would be better of if he'd left. Maybe Effie, too, now that he thought about their strange meeting in the barracks.

But after a few days of thinking thusly, and when confronted with his dreary self-pity, Sharpe did his best to shake it off. He was not that sort of man, he told himself, and on a balmy Tuesday night he took to the front porch with his jacket and his buttons and a scrap of thread. A thick needle. With these tools, he would build himself back up from the depths of his own criticism. For when a man questioned himself...

"And here's to good health to the 95th Rifles,
the first in the field and the last from the fray,
when Bonaparte's armies are banished and beaten,
they'll talk of the 95th winning the--

oh, shite." His song was interrupted by a string of curses as he pricked his thumb. A dark blossom of blood coloured his skin, and he instinctively sucked on the small wound -- thinking, again, to what had happened with Effie a day earlier. And as he scowled at his bleeding hand, he heard a familiar voice shoot forth from his open journal. Aha. He listened -- stoically -- before deciding it was high time he went inside.

With a groan, he tossed his half-finished jacket over his arm and meandered his way back into the house -- looking for a scrap of rag to clean his cut and wondering whether he might capture a glimpse of Katniss now that she'd come out of hiding.

Edited 2013-07-16 21:36 (UTC)

[It was the picture on the screen she recognizes more than the voice itself. She hadn't really talked to this boy since Prim's birthday. More often than not, her trips to Seventh Heaven were timed with Prim's work hours. Not just so she could continue to keep an eye on the other girl but because it made her happy to see her sister live such a normal life. Working because she enjoyed it.

Regardless of the person speaking, this was the sort of reaction she had expected. Not calm and almost thought-provoking like Clint's. No, this was the anger, the disgust she wanted. That she never seemed to garner back home, even after killing President Coin. That she should have earned.

But the moment he mentioned Prim, she felt something inside of her snap. All she had ever done, since the day she had volunteered to take Prim's place in the Hunger Games, was cause more and more problems for her sister. She didn't need the reminder.]

Being- [Said behind gritted teeth.] -honest.

[When he heard about the hunger games, what they were all about, Henry instantly found the idea horrible. It didn't matter whether or not if it was to help certain people cope with being here in Luceti it didn't matter. Anyone who was good, who had some sense of conscience or heart would know games played with peoples lives, children or not, was awful.

Even if Effie didn't know better one would have thought that she could have at least imagined how it would feel if she or someone from the capitol as shoved into a bloody game like that and made to kill each other.

But, finding out that Katniss, the girl he kind of looked up to and how he thought she was so good and honest...was really just the same as the people who would make these games? He almost doesn't want to believe it. He can't believe it. Why would she teach him how to use a bow? Promise to sing to him when she finally had her voice? These were not acts someone who was evil would do. But, the way she sounds it's almost too hard not to believe.

In the end, he's really not sure what to think. It's not as easy when you don't have a book telling you the history of people or their motives. And right now he doesn't want to deal with Katniss. He needs time to process all this, to maybe come back and talk to her when he doesn't feel so betrayed.

But, he has to say something, so he puts on a quick filter and the first words that come to his mouth:]

I don't want your bow anymore.

[~~At least until his anger has lessened.~~]

[His own teeth are gritted. It's disgusting, is a good word for it. Disgusting that someone would make that sort of call. But she's related to one his co-workers, and he tells himself he's replying to this girl - someone he barely knows - because of that. He doesn't gotta preach to the world. Just fix what he sees right in front of him]

And I get bein' honest. [It's why he made the admission here in Luceti. It's why he stopped trying to deceive his friends during the fight with Amaimon. It's why he stopped hiding his tail. It's why he's not made it a secret he's a demon, here in Luceti, in over a year. But being honest is entirely different than an admission which is just going to hurt people, particularly if it's going to hurt more people than just herself.] I do.

[And now he exhales hard through his nose, trying to reign in his own temper (he knows it's bad) and keep an even tone] But being honest isn't the same as just tellin' everyone a big story about how bad you are. There's kids listenin'. There's Prim's friends and coworkers, and all kinds of other people. Maybe you wanna tell everyone you know, and fine, but if you do it in some big public thing like this, it's just gonna be that much more [...Awkward is too soft of word] hard for Prim when she's gotta tell 'em all she's your sister.

[She nodded a little absently when he mentioned never missing. He was the best archer she had ever seen. For all her pride, Katniss wasn't above admitting that. She had seen him shoot. Been lucky enough to shoot alongside him in the past. Clint was good. Better than good.

And she could imagine anyone who crossed his path would die a quick or slow death, depending on the instructions he had been given. For a moment, her memories flash back to that first Hunger Games. To the quick kill she had with Marvel. And to Cato's screams and pleas echoing in the night as she refused to spend her last arrow and give him his relief. The same screams that haunted her dreams. That, in a way, prompted her to do this.

Because people needed to know. She was tired of living a life of pretend. Of everything being so utterly not real.

She took a deep breath, trying to still those memories. And trying to focus on what the man said instead.]

Someone has to do it.

[That makes him smile slightly, a tight expression and not at all amused or happy. She understands, and god, he wishes that she didn't, but she does. They're more alike than he'd realised at first.]

Yeah. And I have done it a hundred times. More. When I go home, I'll keep doing it. I'm not a good person, Katniss. And in that situation, I'd probably have chosen the same thing.

Difference between you and Effie is she needs her eyes opening and people like you and me, we've seen too much to do otherwise.

With the extra wing to the house not yet finished, there really weren't many places Katniss could hide. The couch had become her bed, her room one shared jointly now with Prim. She had made that announcement from the bedroom. There was some sort of sanctuary within there, one she refused to let be tarnished by the one time she and Sokka had had sex in there. The bed smelled like her sister. The mural on the walls a warm reminder of both Peeta and the forests of her home that she loved so much.

She sat on the bed, back propped up by pillows, as she stared at some of the responses on the journal. Some she had already responded to - got into heated arguments, reluctantly wound up searching her soul for some understanding of her own. Of how she could relate to some of the stories shared. How she could manage with some of the losses she had now forced.

When Richard walked in, she looked up. Stared at him, bracing herself for a verbal lashing. Because there was no way he could care for her now, let alone even like her. He'd be moving out now, wouldn't he? Wanting absolutely nothing to do with Katniss Everdeen or any part of her screwed up life. He'd leave her now rather than... than sometime in the future when he got sent home. And... and it'd be better.

It'd be so much better to... to lose him.

Tears pricked her eyes for the first time since Sokka broke up with her. Letting the journal fall down on the bed beside her, she curled her knees up to her chest and finally started to sob. She'd lose Richard. She'd lose Richard just like she lost her father once. Not to death, but to something far, far worse.

Because of something she caused.

[Yes, it's a little shocking to hear a few of those things in particular. But rather than feel the distance that Katniss probably wanted him to feel (and maybe it would've worked, had this been a year ago when he wasn't exposed to people like this), Teddy just feels concern. Something happened that sparked this sort of confession, he knows it. Especially one on such a public network.

He presses his fingers to his temple in thought for a moment before he speaks up to her.]

Is this why you called off the lesson? [Not this specifically, but - whatever happened to make her want to say this.]

[She had been bracing herself for responses like this. For those who had considered themselves her friend to decide to cut their ties with her. That had been the whole purpose behind the announcement, after all. Cut the ties now rather than letting them grow. Because she had put herself at risk of being hurt again only to discover that the relationship she thought she was developing wasn't even real to begin with.

But no matter how much she had prepared herself to hear this, the words stung. Maybe more so than Clove's knife had. He didn't want her bow. The small bow that her father had made for her as a child, that she had given to Henry with promises of lessons so he could protect herself.

It'd be better this way. Better he find lessons from someone else. She wasn't the only archer here, not anymore. And she wouldn't put any more children at risk by knowing her.

She took a deep breath and nodded.] Okay.

[The question caught her by surprise. That wasn't exactly the sort of response she had expected. If anything, she had thought Teddy would just call off all future lessons. Push her away like Henry had, like she had intended all her friends to do by making this admission.

But this question was so utterly normal that for a few minutes, she had no idea how to reply. She blinked and stared at the screen. Where was the anger? The dislike? She had deceived him, eventually let them all think her the hero of her story when she wasn't that. Wasn't that at all.

She couldn't vocalize a response, voice caught in her throat. But she did nod. It was.]

[We've seen too much to do otherwise.

She doesn't want to imagine the situation he had been forced in to in his past that led to him becoming an assassin by age 17. It didn't matter that she had killed her first human a year younger than that, at age 16. Whatever the circumstances were, she knew they couldn't ever, ever possibly be something good.

He was like her. Like her and Haymitch and Zevran. But the big difference between her and the others was that they didn't seem to care what the people around them might think about their pasts. And she cared. She cared far, far too much what others thought.

She remained quiet for a few seconds before tilting her head just a little in question:] How do you do it? Keep going?

[Find something real.]

[Now there's a question. The kind of question that he'd never been able to answer adequately, no matter what age he was. But at seventeen? At Katniss's age? Yeah, that was even harder.]

At first? Because I didn't know anything else. Because it was the only way I knew how to survive.

And now... because I'm too stubborn to give up fighting, and too good at fighting to die. And, to steal a phrase from my partner, I have too much red in my ledger to ever wipe it out, but damn if I'm not going to make a dent in it before I die.

I got a chance to redeem myself. I can't just turn my back on that. It'd be a disservice to the people who saw something better in me.

[What...what.....what...Katniss] EVERDEEN.

[Wow that part came out as kind of an explosive hiss.]

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

[He'll have to see her. Ask what happened to her last week, what made her skip the lesson, what made her do something like this.

But for now, he nods in return, then lets himself smile a little.]

You're excused, then. Do you think you'll make tomorrow's lesson, or do you still need time? I don't mind if you do.

They don't believe me!

[Because she had tried. She had tried repeatedly to convince anyone getting close to her that she wasn't worth the time or effort. That she wasn't likable, wasn't a good person. And no one had believed her. Instead they had befriended her. Peeta had fallen in love with her. And she had found herself becoming their friend in return. Even falling in love herself. Letting her guard down.

She had let herself think that she was worth it. That despite all the horrors she had committed since the 74th Hunger Games, she could be happy. She could have friends. She could have relationships beyond Peeta. She could have something real here. A life apart from the Hunger Games or dead children or mutts that smelled like blood and roses. She could be a normal nineteen year old girl.

But that thing with Sokka had never been real. Not on his end. And it had left her wondering how anything could be real if they didn't know the truth about her. About what she did.]

No one believed me when I tried to tell them. They all thought I was some sort of hero. [The word was spat. Clearly, not a sentiment she agreed with.] This was the only thing I could think of. The only way I could get them to see.

So you're gonna just tell... everyone?! [And who would see a hero in being complicit in the murder of a bunch of kids. No seriously, he should go deck those people. He's losing his temper, he can feel it - and the fact he is should be visible through the video - bits of blue sparks and some light flames springing into life on his shoulders and his forehead. His grinds his teeth a moment...

Wait, so she wants them to... Man he doesn't get it. If people are bad, they should just be bad. If people are good, they shouldn't feel nothing for it all. Ugh.]

Filter it to "them" then.

[Clove isn't happy. It's a fitting message, perfect for the day. Reaping Day. She doesn't even care about most of the content.

But one part sticks in her head. The surviving victors of the previous Games met. There were only seven of us left. Me and Peeta. Our mentor, Haymitch. Johanna, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie. She'd wanted to hide that from Cato so badly. That only a few victors were still alive back home.

She'll have to deal with that later. She'll have to face the consequences of what Katniss has chosen to say.

For now, though:]

It was justice.

[Which, for her, is a foreign concept, but one she can feel in this.]

[Cato usually doesn't talk to Katniss, and Katniss usually doesn't talk to him. It's a weird, silent agreement between them both that he doesn't quite understand - and he really doesn't want to.

But this? This he can't just ignore or play off. He'd never heard anything about what happened to the world after their Games and it's just as well. He didn't think he needed to know because what would be the point? He'd still be dead there and it wouldn't affect him at all.

At least he thought it wouldn't.

He doesn't sound like he's angry, or even sad just...blank when he poses the question. There's a bit of himself in it but no emotion. It's like he's doing a poor imitation of himself during the Training Week. A very poor imitation.]

Only seven, huh?

[He refuses to think about his parents directly. But with his mother being a Victor, and his father being who he was.... he knew both of them were probably dead from what Katniss said.]

[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.

Sounds like Old Testament kind of justice to me. You're being pretty dramatic for something most normal people would do.

[She wasn't necessarily all that good with fighting. Just skilled with a bow and arrow. And too stubborn to want to die at such a young age. Not that she ever had much of a future to look forward to. Even before the Hunger Games, life in District 12 had been bleak. But it had been her life to live. And that had been all she wanted.

She never asked to be a victor. To be the inspiration of a rebellion. To kill all those people in the process. All she ever wanted was to be left alone.

But doing that hadn't worked out here, either.

And she had no idea what to do now. Except-]

I want that, to. That red in my ledger gone. I just want something real.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 11

16th Game [video]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

[Voice]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Clint]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

no subject

[Video]

[voice] [Locked 25%]

[Video]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

no subject

[voice | locked]

[video] [Locked 25%]

[video | locked]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]

[Voice -- locked]

[video | locked]

[Video]

[Video]

no subject

video | private

video

no subject

[Video] [Locked 90% to Katniss]