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everlarkficexchange · 3 years

Text

Mine

Author: @taylerwrites

Prompt 28: Modern AU: Bestfriends!Everlark took their shot at being lovers. But Katniss introduced Peeta as her “best friend” to a guy at a party (she was not used to calling him boyfriend yet). He was furious. [submitted by anonymous]

A/N: Hello! So, somehow, this story kind of took a mafia turn, and… I can’t say that I’m upset about it. I kind of tweaked the prompt a bit, in which they’re best friends that become more. But nothing happens until Katniss introduces Peeta as her bodyguard to a guy at a party. [Hint: she totally does it on purpose.] Also, the full version will be posted on AO3. Since I’ve been sick, I was kind of short on time.

Rating: E (Warnings: Dark/ Violent Themes; Age Gap; Possessive language/ behavior)

~~~~~

She’s used to this by now—strange guests in dark suits showing up at her grandfather’s house at all times of the day. Thugs, her nanny calls them one evening before bed. And they are, most of them, often wandering down the halls with a glint of ill intent in their eye.

“You stay in your room when they’re here. Do you understand?” her nanny asks, tucking away the last of Katniss’s toys in the white chest near her dresser.

“Yes, nan.”

Except, that night, she doesn’t listen. The sound of her stomach gurgling drags her out of bed and she sneaks down into the kitchen where Sae scolds her for wandering the halls so late at night.

She’s tiptoeing past her grandfather’s study, hands now full of mini blueberry muffins and a bottle of apple juice, when she hears unfamiliar voices, and… sobbing? Katniss stops, curious, and steps closer to peek through the small slit between the large mahogany doors.

There are two darkly dressed men standing in front of the fire, their rings catching in the warm glow as they gesture toward a hunched shadow behind them. The dim light in the study is barely enough to make out any significant details, but she easily sees the outline of a boy.

He sniffles softly, a muffled sound heard under the voices of the men in the room. Words are spoken quietly, and she strains to catch what they are saying.

“His parents… One of Coin’s men, I believe… What should we—”

She’s jostled from the door by a pair of firm hands, and she stares up into the fierce face of Purnia, her tight updo making the sharp angles of her face more threatening.

“You should be in bed,” is all the tall woman says before escorting her to her room.

~~~~~

Later, Katniss hears them bring the boy to the guest room across the hall. And she waits until she hears the click of their expensive shoes disappear down the hallway before she goes to her door and steps out—two muffins and the bottle of juice in her hands.

Quietly, she tiptoes across the hall to the door that is slightly ajar. She pushes it open, unsurprised to find the boy crying in the corner of the room. When she walks closer, she discovers that he’s an older boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen—a gangly thing with blond, curly hair sticking up around his head and oversized clothes.

He looks up when she steps on a creaky floorboard; his eyes are wide with fright until he realizes that she’s no real threat. Scrawny eight-year-olds aren’t as intimidating as old floorboards, it seems.

Katniss takes him in, now that she can get the full picture of him. And when she looks beyond the baggy clothes, he kind of reminds her of a scrappy character from one of her storybooks.

Except, he doesn’t seem so bad.

Wordlessly, she holds out one of the muffins, and he just stares at it. She jiggles her hand, encouraging him to take the muffin. And when he finally does, she offers him a toothy smile.

“Thank you, little one,” he tells her, which is confusing considering he looks like the little one at the moment. But she doesn’t question it as she sits beside him, her knees drawn up to her chest.

They eat their muffins quietly, and when he asks what her name is, her answer whistles through her missing front tooth. “Katniss.”

He nods and doesn’t say much else.

~~~~~

She watches the boy as he steps into the dining room, his eyes momentarily catching hers where she stands behind her grandfather in her plaid dress and too itchy turtleneck sweater.

He’s dressed in a black suit, the lights from the chandeliers above reflecting off his shiny, dark shoes, looking every bit like the influential guest her grandfather expects him to be. It’s a drastic difference from the state he arrived at the house in only two days ago.

However, his blonde curls still hang limply on his forehead, and the color of his skin continues to have a grey sheen. But his blue eyes reflect a bit of life in them, even if it’s fleeting, and she thinks that might mean something as he stands before her grandfather as still as a statue.

Her grandfather puffs out a cloud of smoke from his cigar, watching the boy with sharp eyes.

“Have you ever held a gun, boy?” The boy shakes his head. “People around here call me sir when they answer me.”

She can see his bottom lip slightly tremble, but he schools it with a blank expression.

“No, sir.”

Adult talk isn’t something her grandfather allows her to listen in on; numbers and business were of no interest to children. But as he talks to the boy, she gets to witness firsthand how regular people are turned into bloodhounds. It turns her gut a little, even though she doesn’t quite understand.

Yet, all she can do is press her lips into a thin line as the boy slips the silver signet ring on his left pinky finger.

~~~~~

He earns his first tattoo when he’s eighteen. It’s on the inside of his left wrist in dark ink, a snake wrapped around a rose, confirming he is owned by the House of Snow.

He’s no longer ‘boy’. He’s Peeta—a man now, another thug in a dark suit. Although… he isn’t.

Not to her.

Sometimes, she’d catch him reading in the library when he wasn’t doing a job for her grandfather, and she often marveled how he looked more like the boy she knew and not the man he’s become. His brows would crease in an expression of concentration, and not one of anger which appeared on his face often after running ‘errands’. And then the look would disappear when he caught her spying on him—not that she was ever being very discreet about it.

“Focus on your homework, little one,” he’d say, a small smile on his mouth. Katniss would blush and turn back to her reading for a bit before sneaking glances at him again.

Peeta is still somewhat of a mystery to Katniss, but he’s kind to her—unlike other guests that show up unannounced in her home who see her as the annoying nuisance in her grandfather’s shadow. He remembers her birthday, perching small gifts on the window sill in the alcove she normally hides in. And he never ignores her when he comes across her in the halls or is forced to sit beside her during dinner. Instead, he listens as she prattles on about her studies or what happened in the house while he was away on business trips.

When it dawns on her one day that perhaps they are friends, he merely smiles as she tells him this and doesn’t disagree with her. It’s at that moment that Katniss felt their friendship is valuable and something she needs to protect—even if Peeta sees her as a little one. Because friends look out for one another, even when they’re out past their bedtime with hands full of food.

“What are you doing out of bed, little one?” he asks when he finds her sneaking out of the kitchen.

“What does it look like?”

Peeta steals one of the blueberry muffins from her pile, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “It looks like you’re being a packrat. What happened to the food you brought to your room last night?”

“I ate it all.”

He watches her with an amused gleam in his eye and takes a bite of the muffin he stole. Then he opens her bedroom door and tells her to stay put. “Don’t wander the halls at night, little one. It’s not safe.”

And yet, he’s there the next night, stealing one of her treats and escorting her back to her room.

~~~~~~

The first time Peeta kills someone, she knows, because he cries—she’s no longer that naive to assume that ‘errands’ actually means something else. She hasn’t seen him cry in five years, yet when she finds him curled up in the corner of the guest room, he reminds her of the boy she met so long ago.

She takes in his marred knuckles, dried blood crusted on his skin, sealing wounds that hadn’t been there that morning. His hair is limp, and the suit he wears is in ruins with holes and a long gash in his side.

When his eyes find hers, they’re red with a bit of fear in them—no longer caused by squeaky floorboards and a scrawny eight-year-old.

Something conflicting tightens in her chest; one small voice tells her to go to her room like she’s been told many times before, and another tells her to stay. And because she’s never been one to properly listen to warnings, Katniss sits beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest.

She offers him one of the blueberry muffins in her hand, and it takes zero prompting this time for him to take it and slowly pick at the treat with shaky fingers. When it’s gone, she notices that the slight body tremors have stopped and his breathing is now even.

“Thank you, little one,” he says after a moment, and Katniss gives him a small smile.

He’s worth protecting.

~~~~~

Katniss can’t stop staring at him, and it’s… enlightening.

She doesn’t know when the perceptions of a kid are washed away by that of a sixteen-year-old, but she definitely notices how nervous or flushed she becomes when Peeta’s eyes land on her. It’s not that she’s never been shy around him before, but that was from a child feeling praise from someone she admired.

Now it’s from the fact that she’s never noticed the random gold flecks in otherwise blue irises, or that he is a head taller than most men she knew—his frame filling out the all-black suits almost too well.

And have pens and silverware always looked that small and fragile in his hands?

When he’d place a hand on her lower back to guide her out of a room, or gently move her out of the way, she’d jump from how it felt like it was burning her through her clothes. But Peeta never seemed to think twice of it, and would simply drop his hand after it served its purpose.

She isn’t blind to the fact that others have long since realized these discoveries about Peeta—apparently, she’s the last to know. Katniss also hates that this will never change how Peeta sees her because she’ll only ever be his little one, and he’s a man who still has needs.

One evening, she stumbles upon Peeta with one of his ‘gifts’ from her grandfather, a tall brunette she’d seen before who has a penchant for short red skirts. It takes her all of twenty seconds to realize what is happening in the dark corridor before she turns on her heel and goes to sulk in her room.

In her bed, she selfishly imagines what Peeta is like as a lover. She wonders if his lower lip would become a little fuller if she worked it between her teeth, or if the gold flecks in his eyes would disappear completely from lust. Would he grip her hips in his massive hands and call her a brat for being too rough? Still, how can she not be when someone else is currently touching what is hers?

And it’s from these fantasies that her hand travels underneath her silky sleep shorts, and she touches herself to thoughts of large hands and broad shoulders. When her orgasm washes over her in waves, her toes curling, she swears she can faintly hear the sound of expensive shoes stopping outside her bedroom door. Then, after a few seconds, the guest bedroom door closes and she releases the sigh she was holding.

The next day, he finds her in the library because it’s her birthday and he’s never missed a birthday in all nine years that they’ve known each other. He slides a rectangle box across the table she’s sitting at, but Katniss doesn’t look up, still embarrassed about what she’d witnessed the day before.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he says, and this makes her look up because he only ever calls her that pet name when she behaves.

The look she finds is soft and maybe a little ashamed.

Ah, she stayed in her room… for once.

“Whatever,” she mumbles, glancing back down at her book that she hasn’t actually been reading.

“It’s your birthday,” he tries again.

“Yeah, I know,” she sniffs. “Thanks for reminding me.”

She startles when a hand suddenly covers the page she’s staring at, and she glances up to Peeta’s blank expression. “Don’t be a brat.” Something about that word makes her flush, and she knows it has everything to do with the way she thought about him saying it last night. “Open your present before I leave to run errands.”

Katniss huffs a little, and Peeta replaces his hand on her book with his gift. She eyes the delicate bow on top, faintly wondering how his large fingers formed such an intricate knot. Then she tugs on an end, watching it fall apart before she brushes it off and flips open the lid.

Inside lays a black pearl attached to a delicate gold chain, all perfectly nestled between a smooth dark velvet. It’s definitely different from the other trinkets she’s received from Peeta on her birthday, and she stares at it a moment longer to figure out what it means.

But Peeta must read her thoughts. Or her confusion must be so blatant on her face because he plucks the necklace from the box, and Katniss watches him owlishly as he walks around the table until he’s standing behind her.

She wordlessly pulls her hair off her neck, holding her breath when his steady fingers brush against her skin as he works the clasp on the chain. After what feels like eons (but was probably only thirty seconds), his hands fall and the pearl pendant dangles from around her neck.

Then he leans forward and whispers, “It means I’m yours, little one.”

~~~~~

It’s during one of her grandfather’s infamous soirées that she decides she’s tired of waiting for Peeta to make the first move. Surely it had been her age holding him back, but she’s nineteen now, and… nothing.

He continues to tease her with gentle (although chaste) touches to the small of her back, and sometimes grazes her bottom lip with his thumb when he pushes a loose lock of hair out of her face. And when she nipped at the tip of his thumb once, he merely shook his head even though his breathing had picked up slightly.

“We can’t,” he’d insisted, shaking his head. But he had kept his thumb in her mouth, a firm pressure against her tongue while he tried to regulate his breathing again.

She’s never been so frustrated in her life, but she has a plan.

She walks into the large sitting room wearing a black floor length dress that shows off a little more skin than what she’s used to. However, her heart soars to the ceiling when she notices the tall brooding figure standing near one of the long windows watching her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Good.

Katniss moves around the room with her mission in mind, making sure that she is always in Peeta’s line of sight. It becomes easier when a stocky gentleman with dark shoulder-length hair takes it upon himself to talk to her, and Katniss lays it on thick.

She touches his chest when he makes her laugh, slides closer to him when he whispers something in her ear. And when there’s a break in the conversation, she glances over to make sure Peeta is still watching—he is.

He still keeps his distance, except now there’s a firm set to his jaw.

Hm.

The gentleman—Marvel is his name—tells her about his travels in Greece and Katniss leans up to whisper replies in his ear, closing Peeta’s view off from her completely. It doesn’t matter what she says, what matters is that when she moves away from Marvel, Peeta is standing right there. And Katniss can’t help but smirk a little.

“Katniss,” he says, voice like a knife’s edge. It’s clearly meant as a warning, but Katniss’s grin grows wider.

“Who’s this?’ Marvel asks.

Never taking her eyes off Peeta’s face, she answers, “Oh, this is my bodyguard. Don’t mind him. He often plays nice.”

Then Peeta storms off, and Katniss can’t contain her triumph as she excuses herself and trails after him.

#taylerwrites #prompt 28 #Springtime Edition 2021 #submission

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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years

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yes hello it is I bringing you a request for summer headcanons

Peeta does summer specials at the bakery

Where he sells lemonade and ice cream

That Annie sends them from Four.

It’s a big hit

And Katniss helps out by making the lemonade and organizing the items in the display case

But she really prefers the days he’s home with her.

Some summer days in Twelve, the heat makes it feel like a collective fever for the whole town.

On those days, Peeta won’t open the bakery

And instead will open every window in the whole house

And then wake up his girl

For some summer fun.

Katniss likes to lay in bed with zero the covers in the afterglow

But Peeta insists it’s better if they take a cool bath

Where they can be cool and cuddle.

When it’s slightly less hot

And Katniss is bored

She’ll skip hunting

And pout until Peeta closes the bakery or passes the responsibility to someone else

And comes with her to the lake.

It’s secluded enough that it feels like their spot and their spot alone.

And so they don’t bother with swimsuits.

Katniss insists though that she slathers Peeta in sunscreen because of his pale complexion.

They play in the water

Katniss tries to teach him to swim

Which results in Peeta pretending to not be able to float

Just so Katniss will hang onto him.

After a while Katniss will lay in the water on her back

And stare up at the sky

Remembering days with her father here as a child

Before everything went wrong

Peeta is ecstatic to see her so at peace

But still doesn’t pass up the opportunity to sneak up on her from below the surface.

He doesn’t enjoy the scream she lets out

But he enjoys the way she wraps her arms around him and clings when she realizes it was just him.

On other summer days, Peeta’s prosthetic bothers him in the heat

What’s left of his leg gets hot more often beneath the metal at certain times of year

Katniss insists he takes his fake leg off for the day

And lay on the couch while she dotes on him.

He is not a fan of this particular arrangement

But he can’t deny how nice it feels to lay on the cushions with the light summer breeze blowing in from the windows

And Katniss gently rubbing and massaging his leg stub with medicinal cream.

After she’s done, he’ll catch her by the waist and pull her down on top of his chest

She’ll complain as he presses his lips hungrily to her’s

“You should rest your leg.”

“You know I don’t need two legs to do this.”

Sometimes on summer nights, Katniss will wake up at two or three a.m cold and shaking

Peeta instinctively will wrap his arms tighter around her

And cover her with the blankets he’s kicked to the end of the bed

And kiss her forehead tenderly

Until she falls back asleep, warm and cozy.

The only bad part of summer for them is the anniversary of Reaping Day.

Now nicknamed Independence Day across Panem.

It’s a day of celebration for most.

It’s a day of flashbacks for them.

In one of their early years with this celebration, Peeta had repeated episodes

The connotations this day held for him brought back memories he wished to never see again.

Katniss hugged him

And told him it wasn’t real

And that she loved him

She loved him so much

And she was sorry.

She was so sorry. For everything.

But it wasn’t until the fireworks went off things got worse

Because to Katniss, the explosion in the sky reminded her of her little sister becoming a human torch.

And it was her hiding in the back of their closet, rocking back and forth, covering her ears.

Peeta coaxed her out and held her in his arms until she stopped shaking

And they spent the rest of the night in their bed

Whispering real or not real until they both passed out.

After that year, they made a point in fixing up the old cabin in the woods

Turning it into a warm, homey, secluded spot for just the two of them.

With a summer breeze floating through the window and the sound of the lake not far off.

And no firework in hearing range.

Every year from then on, they head there a few days before Independence Day

And do not come back for at least a week.

People miss the bakery on those days

But it’s worth it to Katniss and Peeta

To feel safe and loved and alive

And unambushed by the triggers of their past.

#everlark #thg #hunger games #asks 🦋#cate 🦋🧸💗💐#my lil headcanons 💕♥️🦋💓🥰

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scabopolis · 3 years

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C A T S (i saw you already did a so give me another pairing or talk some more about them. u know who)

C - A ship you have never liked and probably absolutely never will.

Oh man. There are too many to name them all (I might be slow to warm up to a ship, but once my embers of hatred are set aflame, they never go out).

Duncan x Veronica (Veronica Mars): Setting aside the “he thought she was his sister and sexed her anyway” element, which that is a wild statement to write, he’s just such a slice of American cheese trying to convince the world he’s brie. SHUT UP, DUNCAN! YOU’RE NOT A SLICE OF BRIE! I WOULD NEVER HAVE YOU WITH HONEY AND APPLES.

Jane x Rafael (Jane the Virgin): This one is tricky for me, man, because I have a hard time explaining why it didn’t work for me. I think I resented the way the writers setup a false equivocation between Michael and Rafe - that Michael was the fun safe one and that Rafael was the passionate edgy one. I think it did a big disservice to both Rafael and Michael.

Chuck x Blair (Gossip Girl): Back when Gossip Girl came out, my friend was a big fan, I’d never seen it, and she had the first season on DVD. We had a girls weekend in Portland and ordered room service and watched the first several episodes of s1 and I hated Chuck on sight and kept hating him. And my friend kept telling me he got better and I kept waiting and kept hating him. So...I do not want to see his marble mouth face on my TV and I do not want to see him messing with my girl Blair who might be one of the greatest TV characters from the past 15 years. No further questions.

Others include Katniss x Gale (The Hunger Games), Dawson x Joey (Dawson’s Creek), Ted x Robin (How I Met Your Mother), Cristina x Owen (Grey’s Anatomy), Dan x Vanessa (Gossip Girl), Fez x Jackie (That 70s Show), Josh x Donna (The West Wing, just going to sneak this one in and hope no one notices), etc. etc. etc.

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Alright. I know what you want. To quote one of the Olsen twins in the cinematic masterpiece It Takes Two, “I can see right through!”

Let’s talk Will Cooper and Angie D’Amato from the cancelled too soon show Single Parents (I have gotten 3 people hooked on this show and I will not rest until my reign of terror widens).

There’s a blithers fic for Will x Angie (that you, @thelillykane absolutely need to read!!!) that includes an incredible description of who Will is from Angie’s POV:

Will isn’t the type of guy she’s normally into. He isn’t some tall skinny dude with amazing hair and/or the ability to scream-sing his feelings into an unfeeling world. Will is a big old goofball of a dad, dependable and kind and sometimes manic, with undercurrents of a real weirdness that Angie gets such a kick out of every time she taps into them. Will is intense about the things he cares about, but he doesn’t write cryptic songs about his repressed man-emotions or play guitar while looking soulful about it or anything awesome like that. Will acts on his feelings. He organizes and works and makes life better for the people he cares about.

And it’s that undercurrent of weirdness that Angie sees in Will and that Will sees in Angie that unites them and that I love. Yes, Angie is predisposed to think the worst of people and Will is predisposed to see the best. But! they are both giant weirdos who absolutely are like “yes, when one has transgressed in friendship, the thing one buys to make up for it are giant turkey legs.”

I think the series focuses more on how Will’s labradoodleness betters Angie’s life, but I also see so many ways that Angie’s skepticism of the world would be good for Will - “not everything always works out, dude, and you have to find a way to be okay when it doesn’t.” And also, like, Will gets Angie. I think from the Pilot episode, he sees that her bossiness and meanness and zero tolerance for nonsense is how she cares. Most importantly! It works for Will to have that in his life! Because otherwise he never would have stopped wearing zip-off short cargo pants. He would still be carrying that mermaid bag around. He might have convinced himself to give his marriage with Mia another shot, etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, I probably just need to write my fic about them to get my feelings out.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Not really, I’m afraid. So utterly boring, I know. Idk, man, send me an example of a headcanon you’d die defending? I feel like the things I get heated about are when I feel canon is interpreted in a way I don’t agree with.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Single Parents: You and I have talked about this, but Will does not remember what he said to Angie. There’s no possible way. And Angie absolutely rides out the summer in Barstow because there’s no way she’s confronting her complicated feelings head on. Hell no.

Veronica Mars: This one’s for you, girl, but Lilly Kane would have been fine if she’d lived past 16-years old. I don’t think she would have been a forever giant hedonist or super destructive, because her acting out had a very clear origin. And I think her getting out of that house, getting away from her parents, getting away from Duncan, a lot of that chaos would have cleared in her mind. Yes, she might have always struggled with this feeling of inferiority, but I think she would have been okay.

Once Upon a Time: This is a small silly thing, but I like to think that the reason Emma was never adopted or found a stable foster family was because Regina’s curse reached into the Land Without Magic. Later seasons establish (I think??? I basically haven’t watched 3 seasons of the show) that there is magic in the real world, but it’s dormant and hidden because people don’t believe. Regina’s curse took away the happy endings, and so doesn’t it make sense that it would follow Emma to ensure she also didn’t get her happy ending even separated from her family? I have a premise for a fic in my head where the family she lived with felt this need to return her to the foster care system. That there was a pressing on their chests, a squeezing of their hearts if you will, a voice in their ear whispering to send her back. Instead of listening to it, though, they fight against it. And that’s one of the first moments, right from the start, the love of these adopted parents weakening the curse.

#not tagging all the antis #but...I'll tag #anti-duncan kane #anti-rafael solano #anti-chuck bass #(looking at these three together...I really have a type of man I am NOT HERE FOR)#fandom meme #fandom things #thelillykane

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mega-ringsandthings-world · 3 years

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Hi, I am the anonymous who asked for people who like single Katniss.

(I guess I will call myself Pepper in future, I am too much of a coward to send an direct ask )

It is just when I carve for Hunger games contents, all it seems is things I don't like. All hg fanfics and analysis being about Katniss' love, her kids and all just wears me out. And there doesn't even seem to be any Peeta×Gale shippers (At least they will leave Katniss alone and out of the mess) Especially if you just change the gender, Gale seems to be Peeta's type. (Don't know about Gale)

You are the first one whose opinions seems to resemble mine and thought you would know someone like that. (Your "Capitolite" post is the one that lead me to your tumblr, loved it).

I rather read a fic or analysis about Katniss living with her sister and being in friendly terms Gale and Peeta than the epilogue Collins (I think she aimed for a sad one, but people ignore it because "she is married and have kids isn't it the ultimate happiness") gave us. The whole love triangle was unnecessary. At least she could do is turn it into a poly relationship or avoid either Peeta or Gale falling in love with Katniss. Then she didn't have to rush up thing and chuck Gale out at the last moment.

And I do agree (a little) with your posts about Peeta. Where my disagreement come (this is going to be very controversial) is on the fact that Peeta had strong feelings (of any type) for Katniss before the arena.

Just come on, who remembers the crush you had when you were 5. Especially when it is goddamn stranger (not really a stranger, but you get my point, Peeta doesn't know Katniss enough for those feelings to settle in.)

Then why does he seem to know so much about Katniss? Remember him saying that his father said that he had a crush on Katniss' mother. It is not the sort of thing you forget and does leave an impression on you. I think his feelings for Katniss was somewhat similar to the one Katniss had for at the beginning, a mild affection mixed with some curiosity. He kept tabs on Katniss the same way she did to him. It is possible that he heard more about her from his father.

And I think on the interview, Peeta decided to play the tragic lover part, which is going earn him a lot of sympathy (And sponsors). I don't think he remotely thought of Katniss involving in his plan and probably thought that her indifference and her presumed relationship with Gale is going to play in his advantage. Haymich is the one that wanted to make it a two way. And in the arena, Katniss taking care of him seem to have made him fall in love with her. (I could be very wrong as no else seem to have this opinion and it's been a while since I read HG). And him distancing from her later struck me as an I-am-sorry than a dislike for her not returning the feelings.

His many bizarre I-have-a-crush-like actions (I don't remember them all, lol) could be chalked down to the ones of a person desperate to live. (I remember his mother telling him that he will not live, that can do a number on anyone. And Haymich doesn't seem very supportive of him)

I think their (not necessarily romantic) relationship was of mutual benefit and satisfaction though not necessarily healthy.

Anyway thanks for reading my rant (?).

Hi Pepper! So, I'll start off with saying that it does wear me out too. The story of the Hunger Games is a very rich story that goes beyond just a YA book, and yet in it's media and it's fanbase, it seems to be all about the romance, and most of the content is soaked in the starcrossed lovers bit. But to be fair, I have seen some GaleXPeeta content, but I never gave it a passing glance since it's not my cup of tea. Although, Gale being Peeta's type is an interesting thought, but Peeta certainly isn't Gale's type. Gale loved Katniss because he grew up with her and they shared a social class and experiences. I'm glad found someone of (sort of ) the same mind as me! I always wished to find more hg fans who think like me.

The ending didn't fit right with me, Katniss still seemed too restless to settle down and she never wanted kids. So I didn't like it. I think the ending was too rushed, and we could have benefitted from a longer epilogue or even another book going into more detail about Katniss's future. But we were never going to get a poly relationship, within the story it would not have worked, and the author isn't someone who does poly relationships. A lot of what is wrong with the books is because of the author's viewpoint. Okay, I see your reasoning on Peeta, and it's an interesting viewpoint! And I share many of your thoughts, but I see it just a bit differently. It was very clear that he remembered Katniss and loved her, or rather he loves the idea of her he has in his head. Katniss remarks often on how he sees her differently than how she actually is. And Peeta is very smart, he knew from the beginning how to play the game. He figured telling people about his love would make the gamemakers go for a couple angle, and that would be a way to save Katniss, plus getting both of them out alive. And he was right. He's not the type of person to act out of desperation, even in Peeta's lowest moments he never acted desperately. Katniss says herself that Peeta was playing the game, and she was right. The problem is that he presumed Katniss had a secret affection for him. He thought she loved him deep down like he loved her.

But she didn't. She had zero affections romantically for him besides a sense of obligation and curiosity because of the bread. In the arena he seemed thrilled that she was finally "coming around." And he definitely got angry at Katniss when she revealed she had just been faking, she says herself that he was pushing her away and acting coldly and unfair. He would pretend in front of the cameras in order to keep himself and her safe, but then not talk to her, and it's only until a whole six months later that he finally admits she was right to pretend to keep them both alive.

Their relationship was necessary to keep them both alive, and they would have been wonderful friends. But Katniss should never have been with him romantically. As @kapriccosa says, the way that Katniss is written as needing Peeta to survive and find peace (plus having his kids when she was clearly reluctant to) is a trope that really isn't the best.

Katniss needed to be free as she could of any entanglements that had the taint of the capitol, she needed to be able to figure out who she was when she didn't have to be preforming for cameras and or surviving. And it's really irritating that we didn't get the slightest bit of that.

#the hunger games #thg #katniss #peeta #gale #anon

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district7 · 5 years

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A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back)

11.11.19

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back)

A Mockingjay AU WIP where Katniss reevaluates whether her best future is a path she had never considered. After Johanna fails the Block, it occurs to Katniss that her future is not pre-destined, that she’s done enough, and that she doesn’t owe any one, or any cause, a suicide mission.

A/N: There are no promises of quality assurance. Also, I make no promises about updates. (If I add that sort of pressure on myself about it, I’ll end up loathe to work on it.) This will likely hold a lot of things in common with other Mockingjay Joniss AUs, namely a return to District 7 instead of District 12, and an emphasis on the pair helping each other recover set against a backdrop of quasi-homesteading. I make zero assertions POV and tense will stay consistent across updates. This is an adventure in pantsting with a general goal in mind, rather than something I’m pre-plotting.

Feel free to send me constructive witticisms, requests, asks, comments, trolling, whatever.

_______________________

District 13 - Medical

Johanna’s limbs twitched, body emitting a mix of grunts and whimpers. Katniss guessed she was fighting in her sleep.

Or maybe running. The morphling line in her IV was a rifle with vicious recoil. Awake, it tricked you into believing pain was farther away and anxiety quieter than they actually were. Helpful. Maybe. Asleep, it made it harder to wake from the nightmares.

“Jo...”

Katniss nudged her shoulder with a knuckle, leaning forward out of her visitor’s chair only far enough to breach the edge of Johanna’s medical bed. Best to keep out of the way of swinging arms, if Johanna woke up fighting. “Johanna, wake up.”

In response, Johanna’s grunts and twitches ratcheted in intensity.

Katniss guessed at what she was dreaming. Maybe fighting mutts while they tried to pull her under water. What kind of mutts might the Capitol design for that? Giant fish with fiery eyes, men’s arms, and children’s hands? Eels with multiple tails which encapsulate you while the monsters drag you deeper into the pressing blackness, down until you finally have no choice but to gasp in water and drown yourself?

The Capitol and its mutts.

Katniss tried again to wake Johanna, but she only rolled in her hospital bed, tangling herself and her IV line in her bleached, too-white sheets while letting out a sleep-garbled plea.

Maybe not Capitol mutts, Katniss thought. This happened in The Block, the Rebellion’s own customizable mini-Arena. So, Rebellion mutts. Coin and her well-oiled machine could squeeze and fracture a person every bit as well as Snow and the Games could a Tribute. Less horrific and premeditated, definitely. Better justified, absolutely. Without the evil intent, hopefully. But they could still do it, all the same.

What was it Peeta had said in that interview?

Once you’re in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant. All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are. So you hold on to your wish.

His wish had been for Katniss to live. Katniss’ had been for him to. And here they were. Everyone, except for Cinna, who she’d gone into the Quarter Quell caring about was somehow, miraculously, still alive. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Haymitch. Effie. Peeta might still be mentally disordered, but at least with her staying away, he was progressing well enough to decorate a wedding cake.

A wedding cake. That image made Katniss grunt. Finnick and Annie.

It wasn’t just those she cared about before the Quarter Quell who were still alive, it was also those she newly cared about. Those two. Beetee.

Johanna.

Johanna, for whom Katniss had experienced the impulse to volunteer as roommate. The one she’d sidled up to as a training partner. The one whose nightmares and traumas she’d been ready-fit acquaintances with. And also the one whose crass, doesn’t-give-a-fuck facade had gone from infuriating Katniss, when they’d first met, to actually making her laugh.

She sat on the edge of the bed and made one last, forceful attempt to stir Johanna, managing to cajole her onto her back and into wakefulness enough that she blinked with hazy recognition.

“Shit. Can’t a girl sleep without being molested?” Johanna was mumbling, voice rough.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“I can see your face, so clearly I must still be having it.”

“Funny.”

Johanna’s lids drifted shut.

“Have to be good for at least something, brainless, or else these wonderful District Thirteen people might decide it’s not worth the cost-benefit to feed me.”

“You’re good at lot of things,” Katniss joked. “Or at least that’s what you’re always going on to everyone about.”

Still with eyes closed, Johanna’s face pulled a smirk. “And wouldn’t you be lucky to experience every last one of those things, Everdeen.”

Katniss snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re incredible.”

“Most wait ‘till after to tell me that.”

“You know what I meant,” Katniss corrected, refusing to fall prey to the attempt at embarrassing her. She started untangling the sheet from around the IV as something else to focus on.

Johanna peeked open one eye to watch, then wiggled the rest of her arm free from the bedding as soon as Katniss was done, purposefully floundering it through the air until she thwacked her palm against Katniss’ cheek. She pushed her face away with token force, punctuated by a complaining groan.

“Go a-way. Your sickening goodness makes my ass itch. How’s a mentally disordered person supposed to sleep?"

Katniss managed to huff like she was offended, but when Johanna’s hand didn’t move away from her face, she pulled it down to her lap and held onto it, frowning.

“They’re re-classifying you as that again?”

Johanna’s hand twitched in Katniss’.

“What? No. It’s nothing.”

“Johanna...”

“I’m fine, leave it.” She yanked her hand free. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for an assassination mission right now anyway? Why are you here?”

Katniss frowned again at the abruptly acerbic tone, but she’d built up some resistance to it over time, and was tired herself, so she chose not walk into the trap. She was about to lay her own, anyway, after a fashion.

“You mean the suicide mission?” Her voice was a whisper, and she said it only after looking away from Johanna and picking her cuticles for a few long moments.

“What?” Johanna shimmied up into a sitting position, eyes wide and body instantly tense. “What are you talking about?”

Boggs’ words from a group meeting with Coin weeks before had been revolving through Katniss’ mind for the previous twenty-four hours.

Even if we’re careful, we can’t guarantee her safety. She’ll be a target for every-

He hadn’t gotten to finish, because Katniss herself had interrupted him. But she could definitely fill in the blank herself.

“Think about, Johanna. Because since the Block, I’ve certainly been thinking about it. At best, it’s a mission doomed to fail. At worst, it’s a death sentence. I think I’ve slept less than you in the last forty-eight hours.”

“You promised.” Johanna and pulled her arms tightly around her shoulders to make herself smaller. Triggered into a minor episode, she shook her head non-stop, as if doing so could change the reality of what Katniss had said. “You promised you’d kill him for me. I need him to be dead!”

Katniss sighed loudly and stared up at ceiling, fighting her own frustration as well as Johanna’s. Fighting to keep her voice calm.

“I know. I know I did, Johanna. And he will.“ She put a hand on Johanna’s knee to calm her, only to have Johanna swipe it away. But she went on. “We’ve breached the Capitol. We have forces there. Everyone wants Snow’s head. The Rebellion has come too far to stop, and Coin is going to make sure he ends up dead one way or another. But think about it. I’m not a trained assassin, I’m barely a solider. I don’t have an anonymous face. What chance do I really have? I’m a girl with a rifle and a bow. In the middle of a city decked out with Gamemakers’ traps, thousands of peacekeeper who know my face, and tens of thousands of Capitol citizens ready to raise an alert.” She gave Johanna a grim smile. “Those odds are way higher against than we faced in all of our games combined. And my target? One man on the far side of a war zone, almost certainly sealed away in a well-guarded bomb shelter.”

Katniss gave a weak shrug. “Boggs is right. He didn’t call it a suicide mission out loud, but he knows it is. I’ve been seeing it in his eyes, the hoping that I'd see it for myself.”

“Fuck,” Johanna hissed. “I’m so fucking tired of all this SHIT!”

The sudden screaming brought in the medical staff. Johanna shouted wild curses at them, alarming them all the more, but Katniss eventually talked them into leaving. It took long minutes, but Johanna’s shaking slowly evolved to despondent rocking. And then her chin sank to her chest, followed a moment later by a sniff, and then her dragging an arm across her face to wipe at it. Finally, she gripped her skull and let herself fall back flat onto the bed.

“Jo, I don’t know what kind of a life you want to have when this is over, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going back. I’ve done enough. We’ve both done enough. We don’t owe anyone. It’s not selfish: We’ve reached the point where we’re no longer necessary. Coin and the other District Leaders can duke it out; it doesn’t need to be Mockingay business. The only thing I want is to live a quiet life where I know Prim is safe and I can shrink out from under the spotlight. That’s what started this for me. That’s the promise I need to keep. The one I made to her on Reaping Day. That I’d live and come back to her.” She added, “You can’t tell me that at least part of you isn’t interested.”

There was more sniffling, and more face wiping. And a few ragged breaths before there was an exhausted response.

“Do you really believe that’s possible?”

“I think Coin will give it to us. She needs popular Victors around after the Capitol falls like a bear needs bees stinging at its nose when it wants honey. At this stage, my quiet exit might be as tempting for her as it is for me. And face it, from her perspective- If I’m right- if I do go, at best my death makes a good propo, except that it comes at the cost of the Capitol claiming credit for killing me. But if I actually succeeded, she risks me having an even bigger voice in Panem’s future. Considering how we’ve butted heads already, that’s not something she’s likely to want. And that puts not just me, but everyone I care about right back in danger.” Katniss had risked sneaking that train of thought into a whispered conversation with Boggs over that morning’s breakfast.

The look he’d given her had been answer enough.

“For once, I’d like the chance to choose my own fate instead of being manipulated into one.”

Johanna continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“You’re serious about this.”

“I have the bone-chilling feeling I need to be.”

“And so what,” Johanna struggled for the energy to push herself up on her elbows, glaring, “this is you asking my blessing to beg Coin to send you, your family, and lover boy back to Twelve so you can have a guilt-free happily ever after?”

Katniss gave herself time to cycle through a slow breath. Being about to say it aloud made it feel more like killing someone than letting them go. But Johanna was impatient.

“I’m sick of this visit, Katniss. Just say whatever it is and get it over with.”

“Fine.” Katniss sucked in a breath. “Peeta’s a long way from being able to go anywhere without a counselor. Maybe things could be different. In the future, after time passes and he’s better and I don’t feel constantly conflicted over what I should be feeling and how much of that is me over what people keep telling me I feel. And-”

“There goes your self-righteous we-really-love-each-other act, princess.”

“Shut up, Johanna! It’s complicated and you know it. And like I said, maybe things could be different. None of us knows that, though. But what I do know is that neither he or I need that sort of pressure right now, and right now is when I need to make a decision for the people who are still within my reach.”

Johanna relented, begrudgingly.

“If you go back to Twelve, you realize he’ll just end up back there at some point. If you go home, he follows. He won’t be able to help it.”

Katniss hesitated, but then nodded sadly. “I know.”

“Is that what you want?”

Katniss didn’t respond. Instead, after some quiet, she reached over to the nightstand for Johanna’s pine bundle, laying it on the bed. Her fingers lingered on it briefly before withdrawing.

“This was on the floor when I came in. Decided you didn’t like it after all?”

“Probably fell out while I was sleeping.” Johanna picked it up and took a sniff, then kept it at her nose to breathe the scent.

“Had you wanted to go back to Seven when this was all done?”

“I...” Johanna’s shoulders slowly sagged. “I don’t know,” she said simply, expression carefully neutral. “I don’t have anything there. Haven’t for a long time. And I haven’t even been able to picture a world that’s that normal enough to even try thinking about it.”

“Well, do. At this point, the three us of would rather go to Seven with you than back to Twelve.” Johanna narrowed her eyes, surprised. Perhaps suspicious. It didn’t phase Katniss. “Haymitch and Finnick have both agreed to help me make the argument to Coin for us.” And when Johanna only continued to study Katniss, without voicing an objection, Katniss hazarded some levity, "And anyway, you’re practically required to say yes: Prim insists she wants to adopt you into the family.”

“I’m not a fucking pet,” Johanna responded, eventually, but without real heat.

“Whatever you say, lumber-woman.” Katniss chuckled at the dirty face Johanna made at that, before standing to leave. “I think we both know Prim's pretty good at getting what she wants.”

“It should be illegal to be that fucking adorable.”

“Yeah,” Katniss agreed, to be polite. “Okay, well, I’m going to go talk to Haymitch. You aren’t laying a string of profanity down on me, so I’m going to run with it.”

Johanna pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small again.

“What is it?”

Johanna shook her head.

“Come on, Johanna.”

“I... don’t want to get dragged there and then dumped, if you guys don’t like it.” A tear raced down her cheek, then another, which Johanna cursed even as she wiped them away. “I... Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. If you tell anyone, especially that stupid head doctor, that I'm saying this, I’ll rip your spine out.” The tears were still coming. “But I don’t think I can handle having people and then losing them again.”

Again. The weight of that word settled on Katniss’ shoulders.

She struggled with how to respond, in the end climbing onto the bed and letting Johanna curl into her side.

#joniss #johanna and katniss #katniss and johanna #johanna mason #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #johanna x katniss #katniss x johanna #mockingjay #moockingjay au #district 7

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ultimavolatusrpg · 5 years

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ACCEPTED // MARINA ZALE

38 years old, 75th Hunger Games, FC: Jessica Chastain

Cautious, insecure, maternal, friendly, determined

tw: violence, death

THE ARENA

The tributes of the 75th Hunger Games launched onto a rocky beach facing the ocean. Behind them a rocky, cave filled, cliff face rose high above them. In front of them, the cornucopia rested on a small island in the middle of the cove. Overhead the gulls flew and the sun filtered through fluffy clouds. It was paradise until the bloodbath began. Then it was hell.

Beneath the sandy island and it’s few palm trees, underwater caves deep beneath the salt water provided a safe haven for those tributes skilled enough to find them. Inside it was damp and dark, moss growing on the walls. It was no place to stay, but it was a small piece of safety in the chaos. Like a siren Marina Zale drowned her opponents. In the end she won in a bloody fight, the Capitol captivated as the final cannon sounded.

BIOGRAPHY

Unlike many of the children in District Four, Marina grew up with few worries. Her father owned several fishing boats so there was never a struggle to put food on the table. She and her younger sister, Coral, had the ability to simply be children. It was a blessing in disguise for them both. They were close and did not have a care in the world. Their days were spent wandering the shoreline, swimming, and playing in the sand. It was the picturesque childhood that so many children were deprived of. It wasn’t fair, but their father worked hard. They deserved the good things that came from that.

At ten years old, Marina was enrolled at the small Career Academy in District Four. Her parents felt that some training would benefit the girls in case they were ever reaped. It was an insurance policy and protection, but neither Marina nor Coral would ever be expected to volunteer. That just wasn’t their life. They had the money for some safety and that was all that mattered. While both girls took it serious, neither one was the best at the Academy. There was safety in that too. At least until the theme for the 75th Games and third Quarter Quell was announced.

The failure of the 74th Games to produce a victor and the drama that came with Katniss Everdeen volunteering no doubt played a role in the selection. There would be no volunteers. The students at the Academy were livid, but for the first time in her life, Marina was scared of the Reaping Bowl.

She had a right to be.

Marina never expected her name to come out of the reaping bowl. She’d never taken the tessare and she wasn’t the best student the Academy had. It never crossed her mind that she could be faced with that reality. However, the Games also never really bothered Marina before she was called. It was scary, but it wasn’t anything of importance to her life. It was just a few weeks every year where she had to watch. True, it was disgusting, but nothing could be done to change the Games. Her parents told her that time and time again. This was the life they were living and challenging the status quo would get her nowhere.

So, when Marina’s name came out of the reaping bowl she was stunned. No one could fight for her. She was on her own. So, when her parents came to say goodbye, Marina realized she was going to die if she didn’t do something. That was her wakeup call. From that moment on, Marina only had one goal. Win.

Even before Marina rose into the arena she could smell the salt air and hear the waves crashing against the shore. She was home; at least that was how it seemed. The platforms were arranged on a rocky beach with a cliff face behind them littered with caves. There would be plenty of places to hide but fresh water would be a problem. Marina could already tell that. She would never make the mistake of drinking salt water again. That was a lesson learned as a child. In front of them, thirty feet out from shore was the cornucopia on a small island. Whoever had control there would have control of the Games, so Marina knew what she needed to do. The moment the countdown hit zero, she ran to the water and swam. She was like a bullet speeding through the water. No one could catch her and she was the first one to the cornucopia. Marina had scooped up a knife and a waterproof backpack before the Careers reached the island. She glanced over at them with a smile, but the girl from Two grabbed a knife and hurled it at Marina. This arena was made for a swimmer and there was no bigger threat than the tributes from Four.

Swiftly she dove off the island and disappeared beneath the water. The Careers waited for Marina to resurface but they were disappointed. She swam down and when she did, she found something. There were caves similar to those along the cliff face beneath the cornucopia. It was connected to the bottom and Marina swam into the cave. Her lungs were nearly ready to give up when she surfaced in an air pocket inside the cave beneath the cornucopia. It gave her air and more importantly, it gave her time to regroup.

Marina took stock of her supplies and stayed in her cave for some time before she began venturing out. She swam out enough to spy on the Careers on the island above her. They never saw her but she kept tabs on them closely. When the pair from Two tried to leave the cornucopia to hunt down some of the other tributes, Marina was waiting. She pulled the girl under water first and swam deep down with her. The girl struggled, but she drowned before Marina could even get back to her cave. She let the body go then and returned to her cave knowing it would be unsafe to resurface now. They’d be waiting for her. All that was left was to bide her time and wait.

Eventually Marina managed to drown all four Careers. The cornucopia was unoccupied for the first time since the Games began so she resurfaced in search of supplies. That was the first time since the Games began that she saw the faces in the sky. She had no idea how many tributes were left but knew that she couldn’t keep lying in wait forever. It would be impossible. She went on the offensive to try and track down the remaining tributes, but the empty cornucopia was lure for even the smartest tribute. The boy from Six attempted to swim towards it but just like all the others. However, before Marina could drown him, he grabbed her knife and slashed it across her face. The boy cut open her cheek, yet Marina still managed to pull him beneath the waves.

Although her plan had worked well, she was running out of food and water. Slowly but surely she was starving and she had no idea how many tributes were left. Beyond that, the salt water was not helping her wound. The blood in the water could easily tempt any sharks. Reluctantly Marina left the reassuring safety of the water and her cave. She was walking along the shore when she spotted the girl from Three. Marina had no idea how she had survived so long but with her knife and training she felt confident. The girls were locked in a struggle for a few moments before Marina grabbed a rock and hit the girl over the head with it. The girl was dazed but she managed to grab Marina’s knife and stab her in the abdomen. Angrily, Marina continued to bash the girl’s head in while she bled out. The last cannon sounded just as Marina fell to the side, weak from her injury. The last thing she remembers is the hovercraft descending before she lost consciousness.

Marina was scarred both mentally and physically by her time in the Games. Nightmares plagued her and for a long time she refused to sleep. Returning to District Four had at first caused panic attacks and flashbacks, but with time she adjusted. Marina managed to separate what happened in the arena from her home. While nightmares still plague her, her mental scars have healed to a degree. The same cannot be said for the physical ones. Marina left the arena with a superficial scar on her left cheek, and a stab wound to her abdomen. However, the worst injury was one unknown by most.

The stab wound to her abdomen caused damage and the doctors told Marina it might be difficult for her to have a child someday. From the time she was a little girl playing with a doll, all Marina had wanted was to be a mother but the Games took that away from her too. Marina still has panic attacks and nightmares every now and then, but time has helped her cope with the reality she’s living in.

However, that fear that she would never have a child was unfounded. After a casual fling with a Capitolite, Marina became pregnant. It felt like a miracle she had never expected. Her pregnancy was one of the most exciting times of her life. When she gave birth to her daughter, Waverly, Marina was over the moon. She didn’t care that she was doing it alone. She was just happy. Her daughter is now a year and a half and has completely captivated Marina’s entire world.

Overall, Marina is a very friendly person and does what she can to be nice to everyone she meets. While she tends to disagree with some people, especially about the Games, she tries to keep her feelings to herself. There has never been a reason for her to stir up drama. Marina knows that the tributes are going through hell and the mentors all survived the same hell. Despite the hardships they all face, it’s a family.

PENNED BY: MADI

#accepted #character bio #Marina

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ayearofpike · 5 years

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Black Knight (Witch World, Vol. 2)

Simon Pulse, 2014 441 pages, 9 chapters + prologue and epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-6734-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Bl 2014 OCLC: 1065025018 Released December 2, 2104 (per B&N)

A month after her connection, Jessie Ralle starts dreaming about a young thief who mysteriously disappears in a flash of light. On the ninth night of the same lucid dream, she herself sees the flash, and wakes up next to the thief and four others in transport to a deserted jungle island. There are no ideas, no instructions, no obvious goals. There’s just a clue, a plaque mounted near their drop-off point that indicates that six groups just like theirs are here, but only one will make it out alive.

In other words: Remember that world-building we had in the first book, where it was implied that Jessie and her baby daughter were going to be integral components to the new and evolving leadership among the witch council? Remember the difficulty and heartbreak of Jimmy only being alive in one half of her life? Remember the potential new bonds of realizing her father was active in her upbringing, and could be again in both worlds? Well, fuck all that — let’s have a Hunger Games.

OK, technically this is more like Battle Royale, and Pike actually makes a reference to it as the young adults acclimate to their surroundings. But it is undeniable the influence that Suzanne Collins had on YA fiction, and certainly YA sci-fi/fantasy/analogues. In the wake of Katniss Everdeen, the market felt like it made a hard shift from doomed supernatural romances to dystopian future societies. It would be irresponsible of Pike to not try to cash in on that.

But this book ... is lacking in this regard. Collins’ success was not just that she made us care about Katniss, but that we cared about the bigger problem endemic to her (and all the other contestants’) situation. And Pike doesn’t give us enough to care about here. We don’t know what the stakes are, beyond survival. We don’t know who these people are, where they come from, or what they have to live for. We don’t even know where they are or why. I’m assuming there was another book or two planned for this series that would eventually get us to the meanings and revelations of this battle and why they were chosen to fight it and what ultimately was to come out of it. But this shit was so unsatisfying and we care so little about anyone or anything here that I can’t imagine we’ll ever see resolution.

(Like, does Pike even care? He claimed when the first one came out that it was going to be his “finest work,” and that the series could go “over ten books.” But it’s been almost five years and we haven’t seen another one of these. He didn’t mention his newer works at ALL in that recent Electric Lit interview. So who knows?)

The biggest problem is that the characters and setting we already know makes such a drastic shift to accommodate this story. And, like, I get it. The model of the industry, especially when this book came out, almost requires that you have established characters and an ongoing storyline before you ever publish anything. But it doesn’t feel connected to what’s come before. At all. It’s a new place we’ve never seen, everyone in the action except Jessie is a new character (and remember there are thirty-five of them), and there is almost zero resolution or explanation for what’s happening. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been literally anybody. Like, this could just as easily have been a Sita book, and maybe it would have actually made more sense, except that there’s no other vampires left. It probably shouldn’t have been a book about Jessie, who has a uniquely important position in witch world in light of the high-profile deaths she’s overseen and her responsibility to the Special. None of what happens in this story fits with anything that’s led up to it, and we are left a) wondering why the hell we’re reading this and b) ultimately unsatisfied.

I don’t even necessarily feel like there’s much to summarize, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because I’m dedicated.

We start with a chapter about the thief — Marc — whose MO is to hide in the trunk of a fancy car he’s valet-parked, wait for the owner to take him home, and then make off with the jewelry she (usually it’s a she) was wearing after she falls asleep. This heist is going to be his last job, because he doesn’t want to risk someone putting together a pattern that these high-profile thefts all came in the wake of the victims having been at his theater. So he steals the lady’s necklace and then her car to safely get out of Dodge, but when he stops to take a leak the light appears.

This is the dream Jessie has for over a week. The rest of the story is told from her immediate perspective, in first-person present tense just like a good little dystopian. She’s wondering about the dream, but she’s more concerned about who she just saw in the mall: the Highlander and President Coroner, just sitting there eating ice cream like they didn’t both get fatal holes in their chests last month. And yes, this is in witch world, where they died. She tails them and discovers they’re staying with (of course) the Alchemist, who tells Jessie there’s a reason for this and she needs to be prepared for ... something big, he isn’t clear on it. The Council has more info, maybe: the bad witches need to replace their leadership, and Jessie is first in line because she facilitated the killing. But what about the fact that she just saw President Coroner? The Council has an answer to that as well: one of the witch genes allows its bearer to control time, and so probably the Alchemist has that and has brought her and the Highlander forward from the past for some reason.

So Jessie goes home and has the dream again, only this time when the light appears she feels as though she’s yanked from her bed. She wakes up in the real world (and yes, I have expressed my hate for these names, but I’m sticking with them for consistency’s sake) in some kind of a shipping container with five other dudes, all of them wearing identical green outfits and matching unbreakable bracelets. And yes, one of them is Marc. The others are a precocious genius who’s going to MIT at 16, a quiet and scared Korean girl, an Israeli military fighter, and a Sudanese farmer who exudes strength and just seems to accept the situation. All of them were snatched at about the same time, globally and not locally — morning for the Americans, evening for Africa and Israel, middle of the night in Korea. But as far as Jessie can tell, she’s the only witch. So what is this about?

They don’t get very far before the next chapter, where Jessie wakes up in witch world and realizes she’s in some deep shit. She spends all day trying to find Marc, but like ... if he’s not connected, how is this going to help? She ends up not doing anything about it, and awakens again in the real world on some kind of volcanic jungle island. They find the aforementioned plaque and immediately realize that they’re going to need to work together and find a place to defend. They also need food, and so Jessie has to start showing her hand when she catches a bunch of fish just by grabbing them out of the water. They find a cave to hide out in, but they also see some fast-moving people in gray outfits, presumably another set of contestants.

The Israeli wants to hunt them down — kill before we get killed, she says — and so everyone except the brain and the Korean go tracking. What they find is a grotesque death scene: five bodies in various states of dismemberment. It’s not the gray people there, though: it’s a giant Swede who has a deal for Jessie. He wants her to kill her humans as a show of faith, and he’ll do the same, and then they can team up against the other witches. Because of course he’s gotten all the information already, having made better use of his interim day in witch world than stalking some boy. Jessie refuses, and they fight, only the Swede has a healing factor that works almost immediately. Luckily some of Jessie’s time-controlling gene kicks in and she manages to run away, but her teammates aren’t so lucky. Another witch shows up and throws motherfucking LAVA at them, killing the Israeli and spearing the Sudanese to a tree.

So her next day in witch world needs to be more productive than the last one. Jessie calls up the Council, who is all pissed off that she didn’t come to them already. To survive, they say, she’s gonna have to go back to the Alchemist, because obviously this is what he wanted to prepare her for. So she shows up and talks to the Highlander, who starts working with her on fighting. Specifically, he forcibly activates her telekinesis power by throwing her off a cliff. So after this she’s gonna want to unwind with her family and enjoy their time together, right? Nope — she goes straight to Marc’s house and tells him the world’s least believable story, ending in the prospect that she might want to try to kill him so his witch powers activate in the other world. But haven’t we already said that killing someone in witch world means they’re totally dead? Technicalities. So she gets home and, oh shit, Jimmy’s mad that she went on a date with some random dude without talking to him at all about her troubles! What a silly boy!

When they wake up in the real world again, the Sudanese warrior is totally healed. Apparently the Korean girl has a super-powered healing factor even though she’s not a witch, tied somehow to the death of her twin sister, who presumably channels the power through her. They’ve also been offered a truce by a couple of other witches, not the ones who tried to kill them last night. So they partner up, but the Korean girl’s healing factor is instantly undone when she tries to fix one of the other dude’s teammates but they die randomly on the walk. (Probably actually secretly strangled by the lava-thrower, who Jessie learned yesterday can also make herself invisible.) They talk about the bracelets, which have some kind of weird stone inside, and one of the other witches says he’s found the source: a giant wall that blocks off half of the island they’re on, which you can only see if you climb to the top of the volcano.

As they’re walking, the gray team attacks ... sort of. These people are short and pale, almost albinos, but they move faster than any human can and Jessie knows they have some kind of group mind that allows them to work together. They surround the group and lure them into a battle with the giant Swede, and while they’re fighting him the invisible lava thrower murders all the humans except five: Marc (who does take a poisoned knife to the back), brain boy, Korean healer, and two dudes on a new witch’s team. Jessie manages to lop off her hand and collect her bracelet before she totally vanishes and gets away. Oh, and the other witch has captured the leader of the albinos, and is holding her hostage to attempt to lure in the rest of them. She doesn’t talk, but her telepathy is unsettling at best.

Jimmy shakes her awake in witch world and tells her to do whatever she has to in order to survive. If that means blowing another dude, whatever. So Jessie calls up the Council, which gives her a little more info on the two witches she’s teamed up with. Watch out for the second one, they say (not the one who’s tied up an albino), because he might have choked his last boyfriend to death and successfully covered it up. She goes back to the Alchemist’s house, where President Coroner pins her down about why their present selves can’t help Jessie train. So she has to limit just what she says about their deaths, and in turn they limit telling her that they traveled to Jessie’s funeral in the near future.

Fuck this training, then, right? Jessie figures the only thing to do is help Marc live, and to do that she’ll have to activate his witch genes. But to convince him to die she’s probably gonna have to give up the booty ... only she can’t do it, she’s too busy thinking of Jimmy for a change in this novel. He wants to go through with it anyway (the death, I mean) but she has second thoughts and isn’t ready to put him through it. So they fall asleep next to each other and wake up in a cave on the side of the volcano, where the other two witches are fighting. It seems the first dude had his teammates on watch, but they mysteriously choked to death in the night while the second dude was backing them up. Huh. But they have to keep moving, climbing to the place where the second dude said he saw the wall, for ... like, reasons.

They find another cave near the top of the volcano, and inside there are drawings showing a woman who looks suspiciously like the Council president touching a bracelet to a giant wall. They have to learn more, but the second witch isn’t eager to reapproach the wall. Brain Boy wants to go, so they agree that Chokey Witch can watch Healing Girl and Slowly Dying Marc while the rest of them investigate. Brain Boy touches the wall and freezes, and even though Jessie knocks him away immediately he senses that a lot more time passed, and he’s seen things that happened in witch world but not the real world. So Jessie wants to try, and when she touches it she’s suddenly playing red queen with the dead gambler from the first book, who reminds her that there’s more to the game than just the next card in her own hand. What? I don’t know.

She comes to on the ground with a lot of screaming going on. The Swede is back, so she and the first witch have to fight him. But he forgets Jessie’s plan and attacks weird, getting stabbed in the gut by one of the flying spears Jessie is controlling with her new telekinesis. Oh, and here’s Invisible Lava Thrower too, about to kill Brain Boy! He acknowledges that there’s nothing he can do and succumbs so Jessie has enough time to grab the Swede’s head and crank it around 360 degrees. Lava Girl vanishes, and Jessie picks up our other witch and carries him back to the cave, which is suddenly being guarded by all six albino dwarves. The other witch says that in this proximity, killing the leader will cause all of them to die because of the group mind, so Jessie sneaks up and lops off her head, and then goes inside the cave by herself.

Sure enough, there’s Lava Girl, holding Chokey at machete-point. Marc is mostly submerged in a freezing stream, and Healing Girl is just, like, there. Chokey fights free, but of course Lava Girl hits him with ... you know, because they’re INSIDE A FUCKING VOLCANO. Only Jessie has realized something: these bracelets with the rock inside that matches the wall control their physical connection to the island. Lava Girl looks sick, pale, and weak since she’s lost hers, and when Jessie casually chucks it into the lava she drops dead.

And now Healing Girl comes to. She wants to try to help revive Marc before it’s too late, and wants to study the poisoned knife. Only she then tries to stab Jessie with it. Turns out that when she was alone with the first witch, the one hiding outside with a spear through his guts, he used his strongest power: mental suggestion. He turned Healing Girl into a slave, designed to kill those who weren’t expecting it. Jessie uses all her mental powers to break the hold, upon which Healing Girl ... jumps right into the motherfucking lava herself.

I don’t know, I guess because we’re getting close to the end.

So Jessie disguises herself as Healing Girl and goes to confront the last witch standing besides herself. Who, surprise, does NOT have a spear through his guts. Apparently he can disguise himself too, in addition to the hypnosis. So he tells her to kill herself with the knife, but she stabs him in the lungs just before dropping her disguise, and then ... slits her wrists.

So Marc can live.

Because only one can survive, and of course it should be some dude we just met rather than the main character of the LAST TWO BOOKS. THE ENTIRE SERIES THUS FAR.

But as Jessie’s soul is floating away, she sees something. She sees herself, only older. Even though I thought once you were connected you stopped aging. And she tells herself that it’s not over, and they can go wherever they want to go ... or whenever, rather.

The epilogue takes place at Jessie’s memorial service (not actually a funeral, because there is no body, Jessie’s just been missing for a month but because Marc is now connected they think they know what happened) where Jimmy approaches Marc and they talk about what they know. In particular, Jimmy asks Marc to watch after his real-world son, who oh yeah there was an unfollowed thread where they got a DNA report that said he wasn’t actually Jimmy’s kid but it was also prepared by Jessie’s still-mostly-absentee father who has an agenda in ascending the ranks of the Council so its authenticity is questionable. But then they talk about Jessie and ... neither one thinks she’s actually dead.

And that.

Is the end of Black Knight.

I can sort of pick out the seeds that Pike is sowing in this story. I can start to sense the coming trails and paths the characters might walk in the supposedly potential ten-book series about witches. But like. You just essentially killed your MAIN CHARACTER. Your NARRATOR. And we don’t actually care about this jewel thief guy, who by all appearances is a BAD PERSON. But you went ahead and put him in the forefront.

Is it any wonder this series fizzled out? Part of why I (and maybe a lot of us) got tired of dystopian fiction is that so many authors felt the need to keep raining shit on their protagonists. And yeah, this is another Hunger Games thing, but there’s a reason there — the dictatorial leadership fighting to keep rebellion down. To be perfectly honest, even though I see that reason, I didn’t like it there either. At some point, I wanted Collins to HELP Katniss rather than repeatedly jamming a boot in her face. We want to trust our authors to care about the protagonist the way we’re supposed to care. So when writers keep making their characters climb uphill, for no reason other than to try to get readers to buy the next one and see how they get over the obstacles, it becomes stale. If they obviously don’t care, why should we?

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everlark-interviews · 7 years

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Interview with Everhutcher!

It’s been a while, but we have more interviews lined up, and we’re ready to tackle 2017 and get you the inside scoop on all your favorites, plus some newbies coming into the fandom! Reblog, follow, and get connected with the lovely folks in the HG community. Read on for all the juicy deets about @everhutcher!

Describe yourself like your friends would describe you.

Silly, weird, funny, compassionate. Honest. Loyal. Raunchy. A ball-buster. Someone with zero personal space. Good with details.

Raunchy? That’s interesting… How so?

Oh wow. I’ve just never had a filter. I think it’s a family trait. I’m from a large, loud Eastern European family where everyone speaks their mind, sarcasm is the norm, etc. As far back as high school, my friend and I would read smutty romance novels (mostly Jude Deveraux’s books) out loud at the lunch table just to make our male friends cringe. Totally juvenile, I know. I suppose if I psychoanalyzed myself I might see it as a way to explore sexuality in a safe way or something. Because I’m not nearly so bold in my actions in that way. But even now, I’ll see a double entendre in anything and won’t hesitate to point it out. Cards Against Humanity gives me life. I blame the inner 10-year old boy in me who giggles at inappropriate times. My own 10-year old son is far better behaved than I am in that aspect.

LOL! At some point our inner teen makes a reappearance.

What Eastern European country is your family from? Have you been there?

We’re Ukrainian on both sides of the family. I’ve never been there but it has been fun to connect with cousins from over there through social media. Some of them grew up in the Soviet days, so when I was a kid, we never really had contact with them.

Give me an example of everhutcher as a ball-buster…

It’s sort of just who I am… again, the no filter thing. I will say I don’t ball-bust in a super-aggressive or antagonistic way, because I know that’s how some people interpret the term. My brand is more teasing. My husband is 14 years older than I am, so the old man jokes are abundant. I’m always telling him at the store to ask about the AARP discount or I’ll remind him that when he was 18, I was in preschool. Just often enough to creep him out.

How did you end up in THG fandom?

That was definitely not a straight line between two points. I knew of the books for a long time, but never read them. I’d also seen THG and CF on DVD at the time they came out, and was entertained enough, but didn’t love them in the way I loved other fandoms like HP or Star Wars.

Then my stepdaughter sort of made me read the books right before MJ1 came out in theaters. She promised I’d love them. And she was right. I loved them and then my love for the whole franchise grew from there.

I can relate to that! It definitely ‘snuck up’!

Have you written for other fandoms?

To be honest, nothing has grabbed me the way THG has, so no.

I get it! Same here.

I guess one exception is that I took part in a RPF Secret Santa thing for JHutch fans. I was really satisfied with how the story turned out but I’m not as comfortable writing about real people, so I have not been compelled to do that since. Kudos to those who can, though.

So what drew you into writing fic?

The ending of MJ just left me unsettled and unsatisfied.

And although I understand that in a way, it was likely written in the way Katniss would have genuinely told it (i.e., not dwelling on details), as a reader I wanted more. So, I went in search of some insight into Suzanne Collins’ choices as a writer. Instead, I stumbled across fan fiction. I started looking for some good “growing back together” fics. And my love for the entire genre was born. Eventually I felt brave enough to dive in and write some of my own because I couldn’t get enough of Everlark in just about any setting.

What was it like for you when you posted your first fic for all to see?

The same as it is now: I hit “post” or “send” and I squeal and do a panic dance in my home office. I feel like I’m jumping off a cliff or something.

You never know how it’s going to be received. You don’t want to look or sound stupid (the story or yourself). You might think it’s the best work you’ve done but it’s a load of shit. You just never know what will resonate with people and what won’t. I mean, ultimately you can’t worry about that during the writing process; you have to go with your gut and let the story take you where it wants to go. But you just have to hope people will see something in it that they can relate to as well.

It really never gets any easier, does it? What was a pivotal moment for you in the books?

Arghhhhhh. I think there are so many people who are so much better at noticing details of the book. So many moments. I don’t know if I can classify anything as “pivotal” but I do think some parts resonate with me more than others. The entire sequence of Peeta’s time with the Star Squad in Mockingjay was particularly important to me as a reader, as I think it lends a whole sense of hope, which is so central to the series. In particular, I think the moment Peeta realizes the lizard mutts are coming and he chooses to protect Katniss by yelling for her to run... that, to me, is it. He has already chosen Katniss over Snow in that moment.

Such a good one! What was the hardest moment for you in the series?

I would probably say Everlark’s separation at the end of Catching Fire. I’m such a sucker for those two. Throughout that book they’re connecting in a way they never had before. And unlike the film, Katniss and Peeta are both aware of the other’s presence somewhere around the lightning tree in those final moments in the arena. They can each hear the other calling out. They’re desperate to save one another, and are so close to achieving that. You know, as the reader, that it’s not going to end well for either of them. And, of course, it doesn’t.

What’s the moment you hold onto from the series? That ‘Yes! This is why I love this series’ moment…

That has to be Peeta’s return to 12. As I said earlier, you have these pivotal moments in Mockingjay where Peeta chooses Katniss, in defiance of his hijacking, sometimes without really even being conscious of it. I always wonder what happened to Peeta during his time in the Capitol after Katniss’s trial. Was it a deliberate decision to return to 12? Or was it just instinct driving him to where he felt he belonged? Either way, he returns to Katniss and his first thought is to help Katniss heal. To show Katniss some beauty in the world. He yet again creates a thing of beauty - a simple flowerbed to celebrate Prim’s life - and says “I thought we could plant them for her.” Not me, but we. Even though Katniss isn’t involved in his project, he includes her. They are a team. He is with her, in whatever way she needs. It’s unconditional and pure and lovely to see this reborn in him. Wounded but not broken.

I think you did a lovely job of picking out the details!

What do you enjoy writing most? (Trope, canon/AU, etc)

I think modern AU is probably what comes easiest to me. For one, it’s fun to imagine Peeta Mellark alive and well and walking amongst us in the modern world just waiting for love - and who doesn’t want that? LOL. I’m a fairly open book emotionally, more like Peeta, so writing Katniss is a fun challenge for me. And in modern AU, there’s the added challenge in presenting Katniss as someone who stays in character, still finds it hard to open up, without the details of her life in canon District 12 at play. You have to get into the psychology of a modern young woman and the things which might affect her life.

Where do you get your inspirations?

Oh, man. So many places. I suppose, now that I think about it, a lot of of my fics start with real-life events. Some are sad, like the circumstances of a friend of friend which inspired my PiP fic Promise. Others are often inspired by the random convos I have over chat or text with other bloggers. Like, Drill and Fill started with me complaining to another writer about having to go to the dentist but that thank goodness, at least my dentist was cute, and the rest unfolded from there. I also love that there are so many prompt ideas out there, whether on Tumblr or elsewhere. I’m so grateful that someone might not feel comfortable enough writing a fic on their own, but still has a great idea they want to share with others to make the story a reality.

That’s a really great observation. Give me an idea of yours that you will never write, but you would love to read.

Oooooh. That’s so tough because I think, never say never. If it’s something I’d want to read, and it doesn’t already exist, then I generally wouldn’t hesitate to at least attempt to make it a reality myself. That’s why I started writing fic, not just consuming it. I had ideas that I wanted to share. So I’d have to dig deeper to find something I’d read but not also write.

What has been your favorite fic to write?

No fair! My fics are my kids! I love them all for different reasons LOL.

If two of your fics were drowning… see where I’m going with this?

Well, if I have to choose, I’d probably say Under His Wings. I wasn’t sure where I was headed with it at all. Usually I have a strong idea to jump start the process, and my struggle is to keep the momentum of the story going later on. In this case, I had a hard time starting this story, and it picked up steam as I went along. It sort of took on a life of its own very quickly. I think it’s probably my most moving story.

What is the most challenging fic you’ve written?

I tend to write very quickly once an idea hits me, so anytime I end up with a WIP it’s because the mojo isn’t there. I’m currently on the third version of a story that I haven’t published yet. It’s supposed to be part of @papofglencoe’s clearance condom series, which she started after I took a trip to Target while chatting online with her. Her Pumpkin Spice story was such a treat, and I really want to do something fun and sexy with all that inspiration. But if I force it, I know it won’t be as good as it might have been. So WIP it remains.

If you were stranded on a desert island with any THG character, who would you pick? Just one, now!

Peeta. Hands down. Or wherever the hands want to go. See what I mean about raunchy?

HA! Down is a start in the right direction, though, yeah?

We all have that fic that’s our go to - whether it’s our own or someone else’s - that we return to because we love it and know exactly what we’re going to get. What’s yours?

If we’re talking Everlark fic, I’d probably say The Bucket List by Meadowlark27.

Why?

Faith constructed such a beautiful and heart-wrenching story that made me cry several times. If Everlark fans haven’t read it yet, it has it all. Humor and angst and sorrow and friends to lovers, all my favorite elements. And the ending. Ughhhhhh. All the feels, for sure.

What’s your writing process? Some people like to write their stories all at once, then post weekly, while others like to take it one chapter at a time, where posting is more random. Where do you fall in that spectrum?

I’d like to have the discipline to be the former, but I’m definitely the latter. Once I finish a chapter I want people to see it right away. In theory I always think it’s going to force me to work more steadily, because then I can tell myself that people have read it and want more. In reality, life always seems to fill up my time. The older I get, the more of a procrastinator I seem to become.

I get it. Why is that??

Favorite Book? (non THG)

Probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I first read it in sixth grade, not understanding the historical context in which Tolkien crafted it. At the time I just knew it as a cool good versus evil kind of story. Now I have a much deeper understanding of the historical context, and as a history teacher it speaks to me on that level, for sure. Beyond that, the immense time and energy and effort Tolkien put into creating that universe is just astonishing. The man crafted an entire mythology that the world has embraced as readily as anything mythology of ancient times.

It is incredible. I completely agree, and I love the series!

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I have to think about what spare time is these days lol. I suppose beyond work and family (my husband, son, two stepkids, daughter-in-law and any day now, a stepgrandbaby!)

Congratulations!

My fandom activities have filled most of my free time. Otherwise, I definitely have a love for genealogy. I’ll go through spurts where I’ll spend hours a day scouring records to add to our family tree. And I enjoy traveling. I wish I had more resources for that, but I try to get out of town every couple of months, even for just a night or two. Living in the Northeast helps, being so close to so much. I’m basically halfway between NYC and Toronto; I have a ton of family and connections in Philly so I’m always there, too. I just spent my birthday in Vegas and I really want to get back out to L.A. soon. Been an East Coast girl my whole life but I love California.

Favorite thing about Tumblr?

The friendships. They’ve gone so far beyond fandom it’s sort of astonishing. The ladies I connect with the most are just about the most open, take-me-as-I-am group of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I have my group of girlfriends here in “real” life, particularly my friends from work. But my blogger friends are a constant presence as well. Maybe even more so, because you can always shoot off a text or a group chat throughout the day, come back and find someone three time zones away has weighed in on whatever was on your mind. We throw story ideas at each other, talk about our jobs and kids, nothing is off limits. And when you know most of you write Everlark smut you can’t really hide anything after that lol. They’ve become some of the best friends I’ve ever had.

Can you give some advice to new writers?

Just don’t be afraid to jump in and try something. Challenge yourself. There is a vast community of writers out there with a huge array of talents and strengths and styles. If you are worried about how your work compares to someone else’s, and allow it to make you hesitate to write, you’re bound to hold yourself back due to fear of failure. The only failure is to not let you idea come to life in one way or another. Put it out there and share it. Audiences are always going to be better off for it.

Thank you for taking time to talk to me!

You can find Everhutcher’s stories on AO3. Don’t forget to leave a comment! And stop by her ask box to say hey!

#everlark-interviews #everhutcher #peetabreadgirl #xerxia31 #burkygirl

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paintednightlock · 7 years

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GUYS I LITERALLY CANNOT FUCKING DO THIS THAT LAST SEQUENCE JUST FUCKING DESTROYED ME OH MY GOD I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M GONNA DO WITHOUT TEEN WOLF WHEN IT’S GONE LIKE I’M GENUINELY FUCKING ON THE FLOOR OF MY BASEMENT SOBBING MY FUCKING EYES OUT RN BC I ALREADY MISS THEM AND THEY’RE NOT EVEN GONE IT’S JUST I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THEY’RE DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL THEY’RE DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER THEY’RE NOT THE LITTLE SOPHOMORES I MET WHEN I RANDOMLY DECIDED TO WATCH TEEN WOLF ONE DAY THEY’RE NOT THOSE BOYS ANYMORE THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH AND SEEN SO MUCH BUT IT’S OK BC THEY’RE OK SCOTT MCCALL AND STILES STILINSKI AND LYDIA MARTIN ARE OK THE LOVES OF MY LIFE ARE OK BUT THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT HURT ANY LESS WHEN STILES JUST STAYS IN THEIR CLASSROOM AS THE LIGHTS TURN OFF BC HE CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S OVER AND WHEN SCOTT AND STILES OPEN THEIR LOCKERS SIDE BY SIDE I JUST !!! I CAN’T DO THIS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO BC THEY’RE SO MUCH OLDER NOW AND GODDAMN IT I’M PROUD OF THEM BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO DO AND THE WAY STILES SMILES WHEN HE LOOKS DOWN THE LOCKERS AND SEES LYDIA HIS GIRLFRIEND THE ABSOLUTE LOVE OF HIS LIFE AND THE WAY SCOTT SMILES AS HE SEES HOW HAPPY HIS GREATEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD IS “EVERYTHING’S CHANGED” OK THAT FUCKING FLOORED ME BC EVERYTHING REALLY HAS CHANGED AND I CAN’T HANDLE IT THEY’RE SO MUCH OLDER NOW AND I LOVE THEM WITH EVERY PIECE OF MY HEART AND THEY’VE GRADUATED AND THAT’S JUST THE HAPPIEST MOST PURE THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD BC DESPITE ALL THE SHIT THEY’VE GONE THROUGH DESPITE LOSING SO MANY PEOPLE INCLUDING ALLISON DESPITE THE FUCKING IRREVERSIBLE PAIN THEY’VE BEEN FORCED TO DEAL WITH THEY WERE ABLE TO GRADUATE FUCKING PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL THAT’S JUST SO BENIGN AND NORMAL AND I’M JUST SO HAPPY SCOTT AND STILES AND LYDIA GOT THAT BC THEY FUCKING DESERVED IT THEY DESERVE NORMALCY AND SOFTNESS AND I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE SCOTT AND STILES ARE GOING TO SCHOOLS ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE COUNTRY I’M JUST !!! I CAN’T I JUST FUCKING STARTED CRYING AGAIN BC OFC I AM SO FUCKING HAPPY THAT STILES AND LYDA ARE BOTH ON THE EAST COAST BUT SCOTT IS GOING TO BE AN ENTIRE COUNTRY AWAY FROM SCOTT HIS BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD HIS BROTHER AND OFC I’M SO FUCKING PROUD OF THEM I’M SO PROUD OF SCOTT FOR GETTING INTO COLLEGE AND STILES FOR FUCKING GETTING INTO GW’S PRE-FBI PROGRAM AND LYDIA MARTIN FOR JUST BEING A FUCKING GENIUS BUT I CAN’T HANDLE THAT THEY’RE NOT ALL GOING TO BE TOGETHER EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THEIR FUCKING LIVES JESUS CHRIST STILES HAD A KEY TO SCOTT’S HOUSE, SCOTT’S ROOM, AND SCOTT’S PLACE OF WORK HE LITERALLY HAD A KEY TO EVERYWHERE SCOTT EVER WAS THEY WERE ALWAYS TOGETHER AND NOW THEY’RE GOING TO BE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE COUNTRY AND I KNOW THEY’LL PROBABLY FUCKING CALL EACH OTHER EVERY SINGLE DAY BUT THAT DOESN’T MAKE THE DISTANCE HURT ANY LESS AND JUST

THERE ARE NOT WORDS FOR THE CONVERSATION SCOTT AND STILES HAD BEHIND ROSCOE

STILES LOOKS AT HIS BEST FRIEND AND SAYS “I NEED YOU, YOU KNOW THAT.” I FUCKING I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING SHAKEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE OK THAT WAS EVERYTHING I’VE EVER NEEDED THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP IN THE SHOW AS IMPORTANT TO ME AS SCOTT AND STILES’ AND STILES LOOKING AT HIS BEST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD AND SAYING “I NEED YOU” ESP AFTER EVERYTHING THEY JUST WENT THROUGH AND THE SEPARATION THEY’RE ABOUT TO LIVE THROUGH IS JUST WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH FOR ME AND I’M SO GLAD I’M JUST THRILLED AND SCOTT JUST LOOKS AT HIM AND SAYS “I NEED YOU TOO” AND OK THIS IS BEYOND IMPORTANT TO ME JUST BC SPACE AND TIME WILL LITERALLY HAVE ZERO EFFECT ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP THEY HAVE BEEN THROUGH TOO MUCH THEY LOVE EACH OTHER TOO MUCH TO EVER LET EACH OTHER GO EVER IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT THEY’RE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE FUCKING COUNTRY THEY NEED EACH OTHER AND THAT IS NEVER GOING TO CHANGE AND THEN STILES FINISHES ME FUCKING CUTS MY HEART IN HALF WITH “AND I’LL MISS YOU.” AND I’LL MISS YOU. AND I’LL MISS YOU. I KNOW THAT THIS IS AN OBVIOUS FACT OR WHATEVER OFC STILES STILINSKI IS GOING TO MISS SCOTT MCCALL IS BEST FRIEND HIS BROTHER BUT STILL THERE IS SOMETHING SO UNSPEAKABLY IMPORTANT ABOUT STILES JUST MAKING SURE SCOTT KNOWS THAT THAT HE KNOWS THAT EVERY DAY HE’S GONE HE WILL THINK OF HIM AND THEY WILL NEVER BE APART IN THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS AND YOU CAN JUST SEE SCOTT HE CAN’T EVEN RESPOND BC HE LITERALLY TEARS UP HE LOOKS AT HIS BEST FRIEND HIS BROTHER AND HEARS HIM SAY “AND I’LL MISS YOU” AND THAT’S LITERALLY EVERYTHING HE’S EVER NEEDED TO HEAR JUST THAT STILES MAY BE MOVING ACROSS THE COUNTRY BUT THEY WILL LITERALLY ALWAYS LOVE EACH OTHER AND MISS EACH OTHER AND HE FUCKING CAN’T RESPOND HE JUST LOOKS AT STILES AND TEARS UP BC IT’S ALL OVER NOW THEIR ADVENTURES IN HIGH SCHOOL ALL THE FUCKING HORRORS AND TRIALS THEY WERE FORCED TO ENDURE THE LOSSES THEY WERE FORCED TO HAVE ARE OVER HIGH SCHOOL IS OVER THE PLACE THEIR JOURNEY STARTED IS OVER AND THAT JUST MEANS EVERYTHING IS OVER OK EVERYTHING AND THAT’S TOO MUCH I CAN’T HANDLE THIS SCOTT MCCALL IN THAT MOMENT IS ME LOOKING AT STILES STILINSKI AND SOBBING BC THEY LOVE EACH OTHER MORE THAN THERE ARE STARS IN THE SKY AND THEY SURVIVED EVERYTHING EVERY IMPOSSIBLE FUCKING THING THEY SURVIVED IT TOGETHER AND NOTHING HAS BEEN PURER AND NOTHING IS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THAT SIMPLE FACT THAT IT’S ALWAYS BEEN THE TWO OF THEM AND THAT WILL NEVER STOP AND IT’S JUST SO FUCKING ADORABLE HOW STILES CAN SEE THAT HIS BEST FRIEND IS GETTING EMOTIONAL SO HE JUST MAKES SOME DUMBASS JOKE ABOUT LOSING HIS LICENSE AND THE LOVE OF MY LIFE MY SON SCOTT MCCALL DOES A LITTLE LAUGH AND SHAKES HIMSELF OFF AND THEY BANTER AS THEY GET INTO THE CAR AND THEN AND THEN THE FUCKING POLICE RADIO SAYS THERE’S A BODY IN THE WOODS. THERE’S A BODY IN THE WOODS. TEEN WOLF HAS NEVER PLAYED ME HARDER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE I FUCKING SCREAMED AND BURST OUT INTO EVEN MORE TEARS BC THAT’S HOW IT ALL STARTED FOR THEM ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO LITTLE GOOFY SOPHOMORE STILES DRAGGED LITTLE WEIRDO SOPHOMORE SCOTT INTO THE WOODS TO SEE A DEAD BODY AND SCOTT MCCALL WAS TURNED INTO A WEREWOLF AND NOTHING FOR THEM WOULD EVER BE THE SAME OK AND JUST THE FACT THAT AS THEY’RE DRIVING AWAY FROM THEIR LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL EVER THE EXACT SAME POLICE REPORT THAT CATALYZED THEIR SUPERNATURAL HIGH SCHOOL JOURNEY GOES OFF IS TOO MUCH BC WHILE EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED THE WAY SCOTT AND STILES FEEL ABOUT EACH OTHER WILL NEVER CHANGE AND THE WAY SCOTT AND STILES WOULD LITERALLY DIE FOR THE OTHER IN A HALF A SECOND HAS NOT CHANGED THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS BEFORE SCOTT WAS BIT AND THEY WERE BEST FRIENDS AFTER HE WAS BIT AND THEY WILL FOREVER BE BEST FRIENDS BC THERE IS NO ONE IN THE WORLD TO SCOTT LIKE STILES AND THERE IS NO ONE IN THE WORLD TO STILES LIKE SCOTT THEY ARE EACH OTHER’S EVERYTHING THEY’RE BROTHERS AND SPACE AND TIME WILL NOT CHANGE THAT GODDAMN IT I AM SO FUCKING EMOTIONAL THAT SCOTT STILES AND LYDIA ARE OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL THERE LITERALLY AREN’T WORDS THEY’RE NOT EVEN GONE BUT I MISS THEM ALREADY I CAN’T BELIEVE THEIR HIGH SCHOOL JOURNEY IS OVER THAT MAKES ME SO SAD I LOVE SCOTT MCCALL AND STILES STILINSKI AND LYDIA MARTIN WITH EVERY SINGLE BEAT OF MY FUCKING HEART AND I NEED THEM AND I’M SO OVERWHELMINGLY HAPPY THAT THEY’RE ALL GOING TO BE OK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS GOING TO COLLEGE AND IS GOING TO GRADUATE COLLEGE AND GET A GREAT JOB AND STILES AND LYDIA ARE GOING TO GET MARRIED AND SCOTT IS JUST GONNA FUCKING MOVE IN RIGHT NEXT TO THEM BC THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE FOR HIM THEN BY STILES’ SIDE THEY WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER AND THEY’RE ALL OK!!!! THAT’S WHAT I CAN’T THIS IS LIKE MJP2 FOR ME BC I’M SO THERE ARE NOT WORDS FOR HOW OVERWHELMINGLY FUCKING HAPPY I AM THAT PEETA AND KATNISS ARE HEALTHY AND OK AND SAFE AND IN LOVE AT THE END IT IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME BUT THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT HURT ANY LESS THAT THEIR STORY IS OVER AND THAT’S HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW SCOTT STILES AND LYDIA OVERCAME EVERY FUCKING HORROR THEIR TEENAGE SELVES WERE FORCED TO FACE THEY OVERCAME IT ALL AND THE BEST PART IS IT DIDN’T RUIN THEM THEY ARE ALL GOING TO BE SO INCREDIBLY OK BUT I’M SO FUCKING SAD THAT MY JOURNEY WITH THEM IS ALMOST OVER GODDAMN IT I LOVE SCOTT MCCALL AND I LOVES STILES STILINSKI AND I LOVE LYDIA MARTIN IF SUNSHINE WAS INCARNATED INTO PEOPLE IT WOULD BE THEM THEY’RE EVERYTHING I’VE EVER NEEDED AND I’M SO HAPPY THEY’RE OK AND I’M SO SAD THEY’RE ALMOST GONE THIS EPISODE WAS FANTASTIC AND I CAN’T WAIT TIL SUMMER BC MY ENTIRE LIFE WILL BE COMPLETED STILES STILINSKI AND LYDIA MARTIN ARE IN LOVE AND SCOTT MCCALL AND STILES STILINSKI LOVE EACH OTHER AND THAT IS MORE THAN I EVER COULD HAVE DREAMED OF EVERYTHING IS GOOD AND I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THEM AND THEY’RE SO IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER EVERYTHING IS GOOD

#TEEN WOLF #TW #SCOTT MCCALL #STILES STILINSKI #LYDIA MARTIN #I'M SO FUCKING OVERWHELMED THIS IS SO PURE AND GOOD I'M SO HAPPY

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caydenhathaway-blog · 7 years

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Archetype Quiz

tagged by: @cordiallysolus

Derek

The Doppleganger

your archetype is the doppelgänger.

(disclaimer: the doppelgänger archetype is not a reflection of what a horrible person you are. ie: luke castellan, and regulus black were both extremely brave people. your choices and actions define you)

traits: manipulative, self deprecating, intelligent, knowledgable, ambiguous, caring

the doppelgänger is most commonly used to symbolize the divide between two egos, or a the grey line between good and bad. doppelgängers are extremely intelligent, and are able to manipulate a persons thoughts and feelings for their own benefit. while they are seen as a darker character, they are closer to being morally ambiguous, if not, someone who has been forced into a position they never agreed upon. doppelgängers wish they could do better, and often find themselves regretting not doing something. while they are capable of manipulating others, they are vulnerable, making themselves susceptible to being manipulated as well. although many of their traits are negative, they crave attention, validation, and wish they could be a better version of themselves. if you can get under their hard exterior, you'll find a true friend, and a loyalist.

fictional characters that are doppelgängers: severus snape, draco malfoy, credence barebone, luke castellan, sherlock holmes, anakin skywalker, bruce wayne, spike (btvs), angel (btvs), faith lehane, daryl dixon, selina kyle, natasha romanoff, regulus black

other personality types that go with this: hades, wampus, horned serpent, slytherin

Cayden

The Chosen One

your archetype is the chosen one.

traits: authentic, brave, bold, intuitive, natural, passionate, stubborn

the chosen one is most commonly used to symbolize the light side, and the heart of the story. unlike the warrior, they barely ever choose to fight on the front lines of a battle. although they will stand up for what they believe in, they do it in a way that is diplomatic, so that they don't create more conflict than there already is. they do not feel the need to be credited in their achievements and victories, and would rather have their confidantes and comrades have the eternal glory and spotlight. they are content with the happiness of those they care about, and place friendship over all else. the chosen one is always picked for the role, hence the name. their fate was placed upon them from birth, and due to their hero complex, and need to help the meek, they follow instructions, and do what needs to be done.

fictional characters that are chosen ones: harry potter (you saw that coming from a mile away), frodo baggins, percy jackson, katniss everdeen, jon snow, daenerys targaryen, elizabeth bennet, patroclus, buffy summers

other personality types that go with this: gryffindor, slytherin, thunderbird

Hoooooooo boy do I disagree with these, in fact, I disagree with Derek's //SO. MUCH.// that I almost didn't even post these but I feel obligated to after I spent the time to take the quiz for all four of my muses

There's just so much wrong about this, for one thing Derek is probably one of the least manipulative people there is, and I don't say that because manipulation is generally a negative trait, because Stiles is EXTREMELY manipulative when he wants to be- Scott is ///MASSIVELY//// manipulative *on several occassions*, but Derek just... isn't... he's brash and and secretive and isn't always forth-coming with information but he's also one of the more honest people in Teen Wolf, the only lies he tells are purely out of survival and... they aren't GREAT lies to begin with... (remember how that thing about "If Scott kills Peter he'll be cured" never came up again? Yeah so do I) if Derek DOES "manipulate" someone the only tool he's //ever// shown to use is his attractiveness, wich he uses a couple of times with Erica and the cop in season one (two?) where he tries to be seductive, but that's literally all, he doesn't have the ability to be mentally or emotionally manipulative like Stiles does, this is also making it clear that the subject is morally ambigous wich... Derek isn't, he's an anti-hero at BEST but the "dual sides" thing is, again, more representative of Stiles, not Derek, and once again, the charectors mentioned have ///ZERO/// to do with Derek in ANY way- except Daryl, who I'm personally confused about being there to begin with (it's like they were trying to find anyone who wasn't a villain and who had a crusty attitude and just went "Screw it do Daryl") I DO agree about the vulnerability but surely there are other archetypes out there with that as a trait

Personally, I ///MUCH/// more agree with @haletheking 's version, The Realist, I think that suits Derek almost perfectly and the charector examples even line up, I'm actually a little annoyed because this is so vastly different from the one all of my other charectors got and I only chose like... four... different answers from Stiles', and maybe two different from Nikoli's...? Nik still got The Chosen one and two answers different and Derek gets... this... I don't get it

Then there's Cayden, who also doesn't feel like a fit for The Chosen One to me, he isn't brave, bold, or diplomatic, he's shy and emotional and prone to crying if you poke him too hard, I can't see him doing anything Chosen Oney at all, and like the others, if he's presented with a fight, he'll actually brawl in it rather than try to talk it out, he's a very, very emotional person and doesn't do well under pressure, he does tend to get more involved than the others with going out of his way to help people that he doesn't necessarily know but his methods are shoddy at best and when it comes to someone he DOES know he's definately morally ambigous if it means keeping them safe (ahhhh brings me back to his beginning when he once subbed long-term for a Thai crime boss... who he still cashes in favors from when he needs to)

Quizes are usually either spot-on, dead wrong, or somewhere in the middle leaning towards wrong, but I'm pretty annoyed by how this turned out since I did give different answers for all of my muses and yet the only one who got a different result was given a //DRASTICALLY// different result based on two questions

#ooc

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readbookywooks · 7 years

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8 As I stride toward the elevator, I fling my bow to one side and my quiver to the other. I brush past the gaping Avoxes who guard the elevators and hit the number twelve button with my fist. The doors slide together and I zip upward. I actually make it back to my floor before the tears start running down my cheeks. I can hear the others calling me from the sitting room, but I fly down the hall into my room, bolt the door, and fling myself onto my bed. Then I really begin to sob. Now I've done it! Now I've ruined everything! If I'd stood even a ghost of chance, it vanished when I sent that arrow flying at the Gamemakers. What will they do to me now? Arrest me? Execute me? Cut my tongue and turn me into an Avox so I can wait on the future tributes of Panem? What was I thinking, shooting at the Gamemakers? Of course, I wasn't, I was shooting at that apple because I was so angry at being ignored. I wasn't trying to kill one of them. If I were, they'd be dead! Oh, what does it matter? It's not like I was going to win the Games anyway. Who cares what they do to me? What really scares me is what they might do to my mother and Prim, how my family might suffer now because of my impulsiveness. Will they take their few belongings, or send my mother to prison and Prim to the community home, or kill them? They wouldn't kill them, would they? Why not? What do they care? I should have stayed and apologized. Or laughed, like it was a big joke. Then maybe I would have found some leniency. But instead I stalked out of the place in the most disrespectful manner possible. Haymitch and Effie are knocking on my door. I shout for them to go away and eventually they do. It takes at least an hour for me to cry myself out. Then I just lay curled up on the bed, stroking the silken sheets, watching the sun set over the artificial candy Capitol. At first, I expect guards to come for me. But as time passes, it seems less likely. I calm down. They still need a girl tribute from District 12, don't they? If the Gamemakers want to punish me, they can do it publicly. Wait until I'm in the arena and sic starving wild animals on me. You can bet they'll make sure I don't have a bow and arrow to defend myself. Before that though, they'll give me a score so low, no one in their right mind would sponsor me. That's what will happen tonight. Since the training isn't open to viewers, the Gamemakers announce a score for each player. It gives the audience a starting place for the betting that will continue throughout the Games. The number, which is between one and twelve, one being irredeemably bad and twelve being unattainably high, signifies the promise of the tribute. The mark is not a guarantee of which person will win. It's only an indication of the potential a tribute showed in training. Often, because of the variables in the actual arena, high-scoring tributes go down almost immediately. And a few years ago, the boy who won the Games only received a three. Still, the scores can help or hurt an individual tribute in terms of sponsorship. I had been hoping my shooting skills might get me a six or a seven, even if I'm not particularly powerful. Now I'm sure I'll have the lowest score of the twenty-four. If no one sponsors me, my odds of staying alive decrease to almost zero. When Effie taps on the door to call me to dinner, I decide I may as well go. The scores will be televised tonight. It's not like I can hide what happened forever. I go to the bathroom and wash my face, but it's still red and splotchy. Everyone's waiting at the table, even Cinna and Portia. I wish the stylists hadn't shown up because for some reason, I don't like the idea of disappointing them. It's as if I've thrown away all the good work they did on the opening ceremonies without a thought. I avoid looking at anyone as I take tiny spoonfuls of fish soup. The saltiness reminds me of my tears. The adults begin some chitchat about the weather forecast, and I let my eyes meet Peeta's. He raises his eyebrows. A question. What happened? I just give my head a small shake. Then, as they're serving the main course, I hear Haymitch say, "Okay, enough small talk, just how bad were you today?" Peeta jumps in. "I don't know that it mattered. By the time I showed up, no one even bothered to look at me. They were singing some kind of drinking song, I think. So, I threw around some heavy objects until they told me I could go." That makes me feel a bit better. It's not like Peeta attacked the Gamemakers, but at least he was provoked, too. "And you, sweetheart?" says Haymitch. Somehow Haymitch calling me sweetheart ticks me off enough that I'm at least able to speak. "I shot an arrow at the Gamemakers." Everyone stops eating. "You what?" The horror in Effie's voice confirms my worse suspicions. "I shot an arrow at them. Not exactly at them. In their direction. It's like Peeta said, I was shooting and they were ignoring me and I just. I just lost my head, so I shot an apple out of their stupid roast pig's mouth!" I say defiantly. "And what did they say?" says Cinna carefully. "Nothing. Or I don't know. I walked out after that," I say. "Without being dismissed?" gasps Effie. "I dismissed myself," I said. I remember how I promised Prim that I really would try to win and I feel like a ton of coal has dropped on me. "Well, that's that," says Haymitch. Then he butters a roll. "Do you think they'll arrest me?" I ask. "Doubt it. Be a pain to replace you at this stage," says Haymitch. "What about my family?" I say. "Will they punish them?" "Don't think so. Wouldn't make much sense. See they'd have to reveal what happened in the Training Center for it to have any worthwhile effect on the population. People would need to know what you did. But they can't since it's secret, so it'd be a waste of effort," says Haymitch. "More likely they'll make your life hell in the arena." "Well, they've already promised to do that to us any way," says Peeta. "Very true," says Haymitch. And I realize the impossible has happened. They have actually cheered me up. Haymitch picks up a pork chop with his fingers, which makes Effie frown, and dunks it in his wine. He rips off a hunk of meat and starts to chuckle. "What were their faces like?" I can feel the edges of my mouth tilting up. "Shocked. Terrified. Uh, ridiculous, some of them." An image pops into my mind. "One man tripped backward into a bowl of punch." Haymitch guffaws and we all start laughing except Effie, although even she is suppressing a smile. "Well, it serves them right. It's their job to pay attention to you. And just because you come from District Twelve is no excuse to ignore you." Then her eyes dart around as if she's said something totally outrageous. "I'm sorry, but that's what I think," she says to no one in particular. "I'll get a very bad score," I say. "Scores only matter if they're very good, no one pays much attention to the bad or mediocre ones. For all they know, you could be hiding your talents to get a low score on purpose. People use that strategy," said Portia. "I hope that's how people interpret the four I'll probably get," says Peeta. "If that. Really, is anything less impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards. One almost landed on my foot." I grin at him and realize that I'm starving. I cut off a piece of pork, dunk it in mashed potatoes, and start eating. It's okay. My family is safe. And if they are safe, no real harm has been done. After dinner, we go to sitting room to watch the scores announced on television. First they show a photo of the tribute, then flash their score below it. The Career Tributes naturally get in the eight-to-ten range. Most of the other players average a five. Surprisingly, little Rue comes up with a seven. I don't know what she showed the judges, but she's so tiny it must have been impressive. District 12 comes up last, as usual. Peeta pulls an eight so at least a couple of the Gamemakers must have been watching him. I dig my fingernails into my palms as my face comes up, expecting the worst. Then they're flashing the number eleven on the screen. Eleven! Effie Trinket lets out a squeal, and everybody is slapping me on the back and cheering and congratulating me. But it doesn't seem real. "There must be a mistake. How. how could that happen?" I ask Haymitch. "Guess they liked your temper," he says. "They've got a show to put on. They need some players with some heat." "Katniss, the girl who was on fire," says Cinna and gives me a hug. "Oh, wait until you see your interview dress." "More flames?" I ask. "Of a sort," he says mischievously. Peeta and I congratulate each other, another awkward moment. We've both done well, but what does that mean for the other? I escape to my room as quickly as possible and burrow down under the covers. The stress of the day, particularly the crying, has worn me out. I drift off, reprieved, relieved, and with the number eleven still flashing behind my eyelids. At dawn, I lie in bed for a while, watching the sun come up on a beautiful morning. It's Sunday. A day off at home. I wonder if Gale is in the woods yet. Usually we devote all of Sunday to stocking up for the week. Rising early, hunting and gathering, then trading at the Hob. I think of Gale without me. Both of us can hunt alone, but we're better as a pair. Particularly if we're trying for bigger game. But also in the littler things, having a partner lightened the load, could even make the arduous task of filling my family's table enjoyable. I had been struggling along on my own for about six months when I first ran into Gale in the woods. It was a Sunday in October, the air cool and pungent with dying things. I'd spent the morning competing with the squirrels for nuts and the slightly warmer afternoon wading in shallow ponds harvesting Katniss. The only meat I'd shot was a squirrel that had practically run over my toes in its quest for acorns, but the animals would still be afoot when the snow buried my other food sources. Having strayed farther afield than usual, I was hurrying back home, lugging my burlap sacks when I came across a dead rabbit. It was hanging by its neck in a thin wire a foot above my head. About fifteen yards away was another. I recognized the twitch-up snares because my father had used them. When the prey is caught, it's yanked into the air out of the reach of other hungry animals. I'd been trying to use snares all summer with no success, so I couldn't help dropping my sacks to examine this one. My fingers were just on the wire above one of the rabbits when a voice rang out. "That's dangerous." I jumped back several feet as Gale materialized from behind a tree. He must have been watching me the whole time. He was only fourteen, but he cleared six feet and was as good as an adult to me. I'd seen him around the Seam and at school. And one other time. He'd lost his father in the same blast that killed mine. In January, I'd stood by while he received his medal of valor in the Justice Building, another oldest child with no father. I remembered his two little brothers clutching his mother, a woman whose swollen belly announced she was just days away from giving birth. "What's your name?" he said, coming over and disengaging the rabbit from the snare. He had another three hanging from his belt. "Katniss," I said, barely audible. "Well, Catnip, stealing's punishable by death, or hadn't you heard?" he said. "Katniss," I said louder. "And I wasn't stealing it. I just wanted to look at your snare. Mine never catch anything." He scowled at me, not convinced. "So where'd you get the squirrel?" "I shot it." I pulled my bow off my shoulder. I was still using the small version my father had made me, but I'd been practicing with the full-size one when I could. I was hoping that by spring I might be able to bring down some bigger game. Gale's eyes fastened on the bow. "Can I see that?" I handed it over. "Just remember, stealing's punishable by death." That was the first time I ever saw him smile. It transformed him from someone menacing to someone you wished you knew. But it took several months before I returned that smile. We talked hunting then. I told him I might be able to get him a bow if he had something to trade. Not food. I wanted knowledge. I wanted to set my own snares that caught a belt of fat rabbits in one day. He agreed something might be worked out. As the seasons went by, we grudgingly began to share our knowledge, our weapons, our secret places that were thick with wild plums or turkeys. He taught me snares and fishing. I showed him what plants to eat and eventually gave him one of our precious bows. And then one day, without either of us saying it, we became a team. Dividing the work and the spoils. Making sure that both our families had food. Gale gave me a sense of security I'd lacked since my father's death. His companionship replaced the long solitary hours in the woods. I became a much better hunter when I didn't have to look over my shoulder constantly, when someone was watching my back. But he turned into so much more than a hunting partner. He became my confidante, someone with whom I could share thoughts I could never voice inside the fence. In exchange, he trusted me with his. Being out in the woods with Gale. sometimes I was actually happy. I call him my friend, but in the last year it's seemed too casual a word for what Gale is to me. A pang of longing shoots through my chest. If only he was with me now! But, of course, I don't want that. I don't want him in the arena where he'd be dead in a few days. I just. I just miss him. And I hate being so alone. Does he miss me? He must. I think of the eleven flashing under my name last night. I know exactly what he'd say to me. "Well, there's some room for improvement there." And then he'd give me a smile and I'd return it without hesitating now. I can't help comparing what I have with Gale to what I'm pretending to have with Peeta. How I never question Gale's motives while I do nothing but doubt the latter's. It's not a fair comparison really. Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other's survival means our own death. How do you sidestep that? Effie's knocking at the door, reminding me there's another "big, big, big day!" ahead. Tomorrow night will be our televised interviews. I guess the whole team will have their hands full readying us for that. I get up and take a quick shower, being a bit more careful about the buttons I hit, and head down to the dining room. Peeta, Effie, and Haymitch are huddled around the table talking in hushed voices. That seems odd, but hunger wins out over curiosity and I load up my plate with breakfast before I join them. The stew's made with tender chunks of lamb and dried plums today. Perfect on the bed of wild rice. I've shoveled about halfway through the mound when I realize no one's talking. I take a big gulp of orange juice and wipe my mouth. "So, what's going on? You're coaching us on interviews today, right?" "That's right," says Haymitch. "You don't have to wait until I'm done. I can listen and cat at the same time," I say. "Well, there's been a change of plans. About our current approach," says Haymitch. "What's that?" I ask. I'm not sure what our current approach is. Trying to appear mediocre in front of the other tributes is the last bit of strategy I remember. Haymitch shrugs. "Peeta has asked to be coached separately."

#HungerGames

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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years

Text

Okayyyy chappy seven 🤩 Here we goooo 🥳

Lord, Katniss always had nightmares 😭 even before the games, between her father’s death, her mother’s abandonment and the other traumatizing things she saw in her life, my girl never slept peacefully a day in her life 🥺.

She even indicates that she sometimes has nightmares about past hunger games 😭😭😭. Someone protect my smol child. Please. Someone.... Someone? Anyone? No? Okay 🥺

“I bolt up screaming for my father to run as the mine explodes into a million deadly bits of light.” This is such a powerful image and it really does show that Katniss has literally envisioned all the gory details of her father’s death for the last four years. This is so sad 😞

Also though. Katniss really doesn’t talk much about her father’s death after the first book and definitely doesn’t describe nightmares about it. So .... like basically, the games traumatized her so badly that, her father failing to escape the mines as the collapsed in on him, crushing him into the pits of despair, the possibility of rescuing his corpse deemed unimaginable, pales in comparison? Yes I just tried and failed to phrase that long run on sentence the way Katniss phrases her nightmares about her dad dying, yes that was over the top but you know what? So. Is. Katniss.

“Dawn is breaking through the windows” Twilight reference 😬😬😬. I couldn’t stop myself, y’all. Forgive for please.

“The Capitol has a misty, haunted air.” Katniss, you’re from the butthole of Kentucky, the air you’re used to is probably humid as all get out 😓😓💦😅😅

“I must have bitten into the side of my cheek in the night. My tongue probes the ragged flesh and I taste blood.” 😒😒😒😒 this feeling ..... is .... v v v .... distinct .... and .... familiar 😕🙁☹️

“I end up hopping from foot to foot as alternating jets of icy cold and steaming hot water assault me.” Why is this so funny omg 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂😂😅😅😅😅😅 Katniss is just like pressing buttons like, “Ah! Too cold! 🥶 Ah! Too hot! 🥵 Ah!!!!!” All while jumping like a .... cat 🐱🥁

Lemon foam? 🍋 Whatever. I guess there’s weirder flavors of soap we have today but like where’s the Philosophy flavors that give recipes on the bottles??? Surely they’d survive an apocalypse??? Everyone uses those???

I’m so glad Katniss didn’t forget to moisturize, even as she prepares for a death match 😅😅😅😅 even if it’s just as simple as pressing a single button, why is she even taking the time to press it?

I know, I know. She just wants to make sure her skin is so smooth for the arena that the knives and arrows just slide right off 🤣🤣🤣🤣

“This is the first time since the morning of the reaping that I resemble myself.” Lolololol which means Mr. Romantic is gonna be even more turned on by the sight of ya, since he’s crushed on you looking like this for the last decade of his life 🥳😎🤗💁🏼‍♀️. Peeta ain’t even here yet and I’m already making the shipper comments Samantha calm down 🙄😶😑🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐

Seriously there where is Peeta? Did he also have to figure out the temperature controls in the shower? Did he also moisturize? I miss him I wanna know about his morning too 😔. Katty, is it too much to ask for you to go take a lil ... sneak peek into his room for me? 😏😏😏

Twenty dishes seems like a lot for like four people eating? Eh, maybe six people, if we count the stylists who magically pick and choose when they’re coming to a meal... Hmm, I’ll calculate just so no one else has to. 🤓😬🤗 No one else cares, Samantha. 🤐🥱😴😶 Twenty dishes amounts out to about five plates without the stylists and three and a half-ish with so.... idk it’s not that much food I guess but it seems like a lot for one meal, esp if people in the Capitol intend to keep their trim figures. This is why that one prep team girl is chubby. 🤐🤐🤐

Awww Katniss copying Peeta’s weird lil eating quirks 🤗😎🥳. She’s already taking interest in him, she just don’t realize it yet 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ shipper comment alert 🚨🚨

But also has anyone actually tried dipping bread on hot chocolate and was it good or does it taste as repulsive as it sounds to me? I hate it when my food even so much as dares to touch though 🤢😡😤😓

Oooo I always forget Prim has to be utilizing her goat, milking the thing every day until it’s dry I’m not a farmer idk how milking animals works ... so she contributes more than I give her credit I suppose.... I’m making an effort for you, Primmers. You seem useless and immature but I’m trying. 😪😶 Taylor Swift voice 🎶 *this is me trying* 🎶

Oh wow it was only two mornings ago? Man. The first book is slow moving. 😅😭 six chapters in and we’ve gotten through one point five days 🤣

“It makes me irritated that Peeta is wearing exactly the same outfit I am.” “Listen, Peeta, one of us has to change, this is getting embarrassing, you have to stop borrowing my clothes!”

“This twins act is going to blow up in out faces once the Games begin.” Ahhaahahahaha blow up 💥 💣 🔥. Get it, get it. 🥁 Because she represents fire. And she also blows things up in Every. Single. Book.

But seriously, did Cinna and Portia and Haymitch all plan on presenting Katniss and Peeta are like, tight friends or whatever, and then Peeta is like “oh b-tee-dubs, I have a massive crush on K-dog” and they just decided it perfectly fit into their plans?

I’m so jealous that their breakfast has bread baskets 😩😩😩 I know they’re headed to the slaughter but still. Bread.

if you like, I'll coach you separately. Decide now." "Why would you coach us separately?" In case one of you ... not naming names .... Peeta .... wants to reveal your lifelong crush on live television 😎😎😎

Also Haymitch is like “make an important decision but take zero time to consider it, I’m tired and hungover, kids, idc for your drama 😒”

Which as an auntie to a wonderful little two year old ... is v relatable 😅🥲🙃🤭

“And I already know what yours is, right? I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels." I wanna make a dirty joke here so badly but the lord himself is saying no.

“Town families usually eat expensive butcher meat. Beef and chicken and horse.” Ohhh this is interesting. Katniss believing Peeta and the other merchants live high on the hog while Peeta is later is like “I eat expired bread for every meal, Katniss” I mean, better than starving like her, but also not how she’s painting the picture in her mind. 😶😭

Also Katniss never mentions horses in Twelve, where’s the butcher getting horses from to slaughter and sell? That’s why Katniss never sees them, Samantha, duh 🙄

“I can't do anything. Unless you count baking bread.” "Sorry, I don't.” This was such a quick and matter of fact brush off, poor Peeta 😭😭😭 my baby I’m still rooting for you don’t worry you got this

Also. Lowkey, highkey, that tiny exchange triggered me. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭. Those awkward moments where people brush me off or glance over me live in my head. Rent free. For life.

I wonder sometimes often times if Katniss’ father and Gale’s father knew each other? Both hunted and worked in the mines. Just a random sidebar 😅🤭🤐🙃

“She’s excellent” He’s so proud of his wife 🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧

So uh.... is it safe to say Mr. Mellark is an Everlark fan? If he likes and admires Katniss and Peeta and him apparently have some kind of close-ish bond (okay, maybe not but maybe) then perhaps he is carrying the shipper banner back in Twelve for them 🥳🥳😎😎

Katniss, you dingaling, of course he noticed you 🙄🙄🙄

Peeta compliments her and her instant reaction is “what are you doing, weirdo?” 😅😭

“Don’t underrate yourself” Peeta, love of my life, take your own advise. Stupid. 😪😪😪

“I've seen you in the market. You can lift hundred-pound bags of flour” Katniss in the market, staring across the way at Peeta, 👁👄👁, watching him lift flour over his shoulder.

“He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother." This is criminally undiscussed. Peeta being a wrestler alone is undiscussed but also.... did you go to his matches, Katniss? Miss Anti-Social, Hunting-First-Everything-Else-Later? 😏😏😏 If this ain’t proof of her lil crush idk what is

“All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance.” “You'll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows.” Does no one else realize that Katniss and Peeta literally took the other’s advise for the first part of the games? How did Peeta get in with the Careers? The way she just said. Where is Katniss when Peeta and the Careers discover her? High up in a tree. Okay, this maybe didn’t compute right but I had a thought here so I said it

Peeta’s mother is just a monster. Who says that crap? 😔😔😔 don’t worry, baby, I’m rooting for you

“She said, 'She's a survivor, that one.' She is” Yeah, she is, no thanks to you, Mrs. Mellark 😤. Stingy ho.

Peeta’s got pain in his eyes 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Awww, Katniss accrediting her survival to Peeta’s help 😭😭😭😭. This is so pure. Also kiss now, you little freaks.

“She has no idea. The effect she can have.” This is such an iconic line... but the can has always had me laughing. She can have an effect, if she really wants to. Or not, depending on the day.

Katniss is so stupid, how did she construe that as an insult??? 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ y’all ever just wanna smack her into a wall?

“In public, I want you by each other's side every minute” If Peeta didn’t have a long life crush, what was the ultimate plan with all this friendship act they’re being forced into? 🤔🤔🤔

Even Peeta’s trying to object to it 😭😭😭😭

“You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other.” You will fall in love. 🤩🥳😎

“I bite my lip and stalk back to my room, making sure Peeta can hear the door slam.” Okay, now imagine how much she’s hurting his feelings right now 😖😣 what a little brat

“But that didn't mean I wanted to do everything with Peeta. Who, by the way, clearly doesn't want to be partnering up with me, either.” Lolololololololol this is so funny in hindsight 🤣🤣🤣. Also if you showed a little enthusiasm, Peeta would probably be happy to partner with you.

“But a tiny part of me wonders if this was a compliment. That he meant I was appealing in some way.” No, really, Katniss? A compliment? Who’d give you one of those? 🙄🙄🙄

“It's weird, how much he's noticed me. Like the attention he's paid to my hunting.” A normal person at this point would put together a crush 😅

“And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either. [...] I have kept track of the boy with the bread.” Anddd a normal person would figure out their own crush at this point 😅😅.

“I do a quick assessment. Peeta and I are the only two dressed alike.” We stan a matching couple in this house 😎😏

“Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than I am” That means 18 out of 24 tributes tower over my girl here. Smol Katniss. The movies did such erasure on this front I’m still bitter 🤐😒😤😩

“I may be smaller naturally, but overall my family's resourcefulness has given me an edge in that area.” Just a tiny muscular thing standing next to a bunch of tall, lanky kids. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Awww “Each [Career tribute] must have fifty to a hundred pounds on me.” I mean ... let’s calculate. A muscular girl would probably weigh like 150 pounds... so basically Katniss is at most, 100 pounds. Tiny Katty.

“I'm thinking that it's lucky I'm a fast runner when Peeta nudges my arm and I jump.” This is a random, cute interaction 😍😍😍. Shipper blinders are on and tight.

“Suppose we tie some knots.” “Right you are.” I legitimately just scratched my face, who says right you are? An 87 year old man, that’s who 😅😅😅. Not turning your girl on very well, Peeta baby.

Although it does sound a bit like a backwoods southern thing soooo.... hillbilly Everlark nation rise. 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

“We concentrate on this one skill for an hour until both of us have mastered it.” Awww, so Peeta knows how to tie a snare? He’s not as clueless as half the fandom acts.

How exactly is frosting cakes equating to amazing camouflager in a death match? Books crack me up with these connections. “I’m an amazing artist because I write birthday cards!”

Lolololol Prim admiring her future brother-in-law’s handiwork 🥰🥰🥰🥰 too bad she dies before they can get together for real for real.

“Somehow the whole thing - his skill, those inaccessible cakes, the praise of the camouflage expert - annoys me.” Dude, you get praised by everyone and their brother while Peeta gets overlooked, give him a moment to shine. 😑🙄 jealous wife much?

Also she’s already picking up on Peeta’s eye for beauty 😅😅😅

“It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death.” "Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake-“ "Say we move on.” She’s such a little snot. 😒😒😒

But also I love that already in this point of their relationship, Peeta is noticing when she’s being a brat 😭😂😅. “Don’t be so superior.”

“Despite Haymitch's order to appear mediocre, Peeta excels in hand-to-hand combat, and I sweep the edible plants test without blinking an eye.” Lolololol their mentor’s advise went into one ear and right out the other 😂😅🤣.

But also why did the movie make a point in adding an extra scene of Peeta looking weak and the Careers staring at him? That literally took up time and served no purpose at all. 😤😤😤 I’m coming for you, Gary Ross

Awww, everyone but the careers eat alone. But Katniss and Peeta eat together 🥺🥺🥺. It’s like a forced first date 🥳🥳🥳

I like how Katniss says they include bread from every district but she then proceeds to only mention the two districts that later have relevant tributes. 😅😅😅

Lolololol their fake friendship “laugh ... now! Okay, I’ll smile, try to say something interesting”

“Ever since I slammed my door, there's been a chill in the air between us.” Well yeah, you probably hurt his feelings 🥺🥺🥺

Umm, Katniss just casually drops that she was chased by a bear.... how did homegirl live? 😬😳

Peeta knowing Rue’s name and being the one to take notice of her first 🥺🥺🥺. If the games had come down to Katniss, Peeta and Rue, y’all know Everlark would have swallowed the berries and gotten Rue home. 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

“Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around.” "All right, Katniss.” He made a single comment to you, ding dong. He didn’t ask for a goodnight kiss 🙄🙄🙄.

Also anyone ever think of how lonely Peeta’s life must be? He’s not close to his family that we can see, Delly’s his only real friend, after he wins he lives in that huge house all alone... I feel sad now. I did this to myself. 😬😭🥺

Katniss’ “Oh! The weapons!” When she sees the bows and arrows is so cute 🥰🥰🥰

Katniss has such a rage built up inside of her. Let it out, girlfriend

See, I’d have done this too but in my rage, I’d probably have shot a real person and not the pig ... goodbye, Plutarch 👋🏻

Andddd I think that’s all for this chapter! Sorry my comments weren’t as interesting as usual 😬.

#thgagain

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everlarkficexchange · 3 years

Text

A Simple Choice

Written by: @justajjfan

Beta’d by: @sunsetsrmydreams

Prompt 83: Katniss is whipped instead of Gale in Catching Fire, Peeta’s the one who’s there to take care of her after. [submitted by anonymous].

Prompt 116: Peeta braids Katniss’ hair to soothe her. [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: Mature

Warning: Mention of whipping. Use of coarse language.

A/N: This is it…the very last chapter! Thank you to @everlarkficexchange - @javistg and @xerxia31 ; the 2 anons ; @sunsetsrmydreams and to all you lovely readers! 😘

~~~

Chapter 7 + Epilogue

Taking it as a reassuring sign we’ve reached our destination, my ears prick up to the sound of engines humming and people shouting at Gale to hurry. I’m further reassured when the terrain changes from dirt and tall grasses to black steel.

This must be our ride.

Gale runs onto the steel ramp just as it begins to close and sets me down onto a cold steel seat a little further into the belly of the craft.

“Peeta!”

I look around frantically to the sound of Katniss’ voice calling out my name and see her on the opposite side trying to free herself from the restraints of her own seat as two armed soldiers on either side try to convince her to stay seated.

“Katniss!” I shout back, awkwardly pulling myself up on my good leg only to feel Gale’s heavy hand on my shoulder pushing me back down.

“Strap yourself in. We’re about to take off,” Gale informs me.

Ooompff. I don’t have time to protest as Katniss pushes Gale out of her way and launches herself at me. I grab her tightly in my arms breathing in her scent as she peppers kisses over every inch of my face.

“My stupid leg…it wouldn’t work—” I try to explain but she continues to kiss me and I can feel the wetness from her tears on my cheeks.

“I thought I lost you,” she chokes between each word.

“Shshsh, I’m here now,” I say in a hushed tone, holding her tightly in my arms, “if Gale hadn’t shown up when he did, I would have missed our ride,” I tell her. “He saved me Katniss,” I say, lifting her chin to look at me. “Gale brought me back to you.”

Katniss lets out a shaky laugh and I flick my eyes to the side to where Gale now sits buckled to his seat, his head lowered. She kisses my lips sweetly before slowly turning to Gale, “Thank you,” she says in an almost whisper but Gale hears it and lifts his head to look at her and nods, a brief smile appearing on his face.

“The star-crossed lovers reunion can wait until we get to District 13,” Haymitch announces and I hadn’t even noticed he was sitting across from me.

“Thirteen?”

“You heard me. Welcome to the revolution lovebirds. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions and I’ll explain everything but for now buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” We do as he says and Katniss takes the empty seat next to me holding onto my hand tightly.

As the hovercraft begins its assent, I take a moment to look around my surroundings and see most of the seats are filled with people from our district…survivors just like us.

At first estimate, I count in my head at least 200 hundred people. Amongst the small crowd, I’m surprised to see peacekeeper Darius who sits next to his look-a-like, both obviously happy to see the other and the resemblance is unquestionable. Brothers.

Haymitch begins his story by telling us about how he first joined the rebel underground after President Snow killed his family, his contact with District 13 after rebel spies discovered a plot to reap the surviving Victors for the quarter quell and how this planned attack was about freeing Panem from President Snow’s sadistic rule once and for all.

I scan my eyes further along the craft after Haymitch was done talking, hoping to find my own brothers. My breath hitches when I lock onto a small group of people unmistakably Merchant. Madge Undersee is the first person I recognise followed by a shell-shocked Delly Cartwright who has her arm wrapped protectively around her younger brother seated beside her.

But they’re not there.

“They could’ve made it out somehow,” Katniss says hopefully, noticing my gaze.

“Yeah…maybe,” I answer, kissing the top of her head softly. But deep down I know the probability is next to zero.

***

We gawk in amazement as our hovercraft lands safely in District 13. An impenetrable fortress made of concrete and steel strategically built deep underground.

Once the steel ramp of the hovercraft lowers and locks securely, a flurry of uniformed officials welcome us not as refugees but as new soldiers of District 13…a title I’m not sure I like.

We are quickly ushered towards a ‘clearance team’ waiting to check everyone, giving those who need medical attention priority. Hardly considering myself a medical priority, I’m nonetheless placed on a steel gurney and wheeled into a curtained partition of their hospital emergency room and assessed.

Katniss refuses to leave my side the whole time and holds onto my hand tightly insisting she can be checked just fine next to me, a fierce look in her eyes silently warning no one try and challenge her.

To my relief…no one does.

Temporary repairs are made on my prosthetic leg by a robotics technician and even though my gait is somewhat compromised, I’m grateful I can at least walk unaided. I’m to report to someone called Beetee tomorrow morning for further evaluation on my leg with the view of a more advanced replacement and think to myself maybe life here in Thirteen won’t be so bad.

Medically cleared, we are moved on to another team who measure us from head to toe before handing out a parcel each containing a set of clean clothes, shoes according to our size and a package labelled ‘personal hygiene’.

With parcels in hand, compartment allocation is next and my heart starts to sink knowing I’ll have to spend my nights in this place without Katniss.

“There she is!”

We both turn around to see Mrs Everdeen rushing towards us with Katniss’ sister in tow wearing the brightest of smiles. Katniss immediately locks Primrose in a loving embrace, ignoring her mother altogether.

“Gale told us you were here,” her mother says, brushing off her daughter’s cold welcome. “I was so worried Katniss. You shouldn’t have runaway like that,” she adds.

Katniss steps away and reaches her hand out for me to hold, “you gave me sleep syrup to stop me from going back for Peeta.”

“You almost scratched poor Gale’s eye out. It was the only way to calm you,” Mrs Everdeen says in her defence. Katniss doesn’t respond but I can see how much she resented being drugged. A feeling I know only too well.

“I’m glad to see you are safe Peeta,” Mrs Everdeen turns to me and says genuinely, breaking a moment of uncomfortable silence.

Katniss huffs but I smile and thank Mrs Everdeen just as an officer orders us to line up and register our details for allotted compartments.

“There’s no need for my daughter to register, she’s been assigned to the Everdeen family compartment; Katniss Everdeen; Level 32; Room 234a,” Mrs Everdeen informs the District 13 officer.

“No, I’m going to register with Peeta.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs Everdeen responds. “Peeta will need to reg—”

Katniss doesn’t wait for her mother to finish her sentence and leads me to the registry desk in the middle of the processing room.

“Name…age…occupation…marital status?” the registry officer asks robotically, not bothering to look up and stares at the small screen on his device waiting to key in my answer.

“Peeta Mellark…17…baker…s—”

“Married.” Katniss answers the last question for me and squeezes my hand. I turn my head, mouth gaped open in surprise but I don’t say anything and play along with the ruse.

The officer raises his head from his device and looks at Katniss, “and you would be..?”

“Katniss Mellark…17…hunter…wife of Peeta Mellark. We’re married…to each other,” she gestures, pointing her finger between the two of us. The officer darts his eyes suspiciously from me to Katniss.

Holding in an anxious breath, I feel Katniss’ grip on my hand tighten but the officer eventually lowers his gaze and types in the information, allowing us to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

I hear a shocked gasp behind us which could only have come from Mrs Everdeen but I don’t dare turn my head to look. Primrose on the other hand, rushes over to hug me first then Katniss and whispers something in her ear causing Katniss to blush.

“That’s not true! She’s too young to be married,” Mrs Everdeen informs the officer who raises his head and huffs in frustration.

“I usually keep my noise out of people’s business but I’ll make an exception in this case,” Haymitch says, appearing out of nowhere accompanied by an older soldier and by the looks of his uniform, he’s someone of high-ranking importance.

“Sweetheart and the boy technically became of age the moment they became Victors.”

Shock covers Mrs Everdeen’s face, “but she’s only been gone for 2 days and Twelve’s traditions state—”

“There is no District 12!” Haymitch exclaims. “What matters is the here and now and if they say they toasted then it’s good enough for me, he announces. “Young love, Lily…have you’ve forgotten what that’s like?”

Mrs Everdeen swallows hard and looks across to Katniss and me as her eyes begin to glisten, “no…I haven’t forgotten.” she replies softly.

“We don’t know what the future holds for any us and these two have been through a lot. They deserve a little happiness…don’t you think?” Haymitch questions. Mrs Everdeen ponders his words before eventually nodding in agreement. “Now what do you say we leave the newlyweds to themselves while we enjoy a hot cup of tea in the dining room,” he suggests.

Mrs Everdeen agrees and before she leaves, insists Katniss accompany her to the medical clinic in the morning and another blush appears on Katniss’ face but she relents.

“Congratulations Mr and Mrs Mellark. Enjoy your honeymoon,” Haymitch says, giving us a sly wink before he and his friend, who introduces himself as General Maximus Jackson, escort Mrs Everdeen and Prim to the dining room.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startles us both, “so…you two married or what?” the frustrated officer asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Married!” Katniss replies without pause.

The officer then looks to me for confirmation, “married,” I tell him swallowing hard and hoping the blush on my own face doesn’t give anything away.

***

Stepping into our compartment, we take a look around and see it adequately furnished with a large bunk bed, a chest of draws; a small closet and an equally small bathroom but it’s nothing to complain about.

We haven’t said a word to each other since we were given our compartment passcode. But the burning question I want to ask Katniss must wait, both of us agreeing to shower before settling in.

Although brief, the warm spray of water felt good on my skin and I quickly changed into the clothes marked ‘bed clothing’ from my parcel. When I slide the bathroom door open, Katniss is sitting on the bunk bed dressed in her District Thirteen issued pyjamas, her hair slightly damp from her shower.

Katniss raises her head to see me looking at her and I’m mesmerised by the beautiful sight before me. “Will you braid my hair Peeta?” she asks softly, offering her hairbrush to me.

My breath hitches as she leans her head back and sighs in contentment when my hands whisper over her neck and sweep the dark mane to trail down her back. I begin to brush her hair, carefully working through the knots and snags caused by our harrowing race for safety. Katniss hums as I continue until the brush moves through smoothly.

I reverently run my fingers through the long locks before dividing them into sections then gently braiding them together. I’m struck by the intimacy of the moment, bringing my question bubbling to the surface.

“Why did you lie to your mother about us being married?”

Katniss straightens her back and turns around looking deep into my eyes, “I didn’t. You baked the bread and I asked you and you agreed…remember?”

With my forehead creased in deep thought it takes only a few seconds to understand what Katniss is saying and there’s no hiding the huge smile forming on my lips, “yes.”

“I know I’m not good with words but it was the same bread you gave me all those years ago and it was perfect,” Katniss says. “You’re not taking it back are you Peeta? You do want me as your wife…don’t you?”

My hands instinctively cup her cheeks, “Katniss Everdeen, a life with you has been my fantasy for as long as I can remember. I’ve dreamt of asking you to toast with me,” I start to explain. “I’ve wanted to say so many things to you, solemnly vow to honour and keep you safe for the rest of my life, then take you in my arms and show you how much I love you,” I say, feeling heat slowly creeping up my neck as the warmth rushes to my groin.

She steps away and I immediately begin to worry I’ve said too much. Katniss searches through the pocket of her father’s hunting jacket hanging over a chair and brings the napkin she grabbed earlier today and unfolds it onto the bunk.

There in front of my eyes is the untouched triangle-shaped piece of toast and I have to wonder how it wasn’t confiscated when we were being checked over.

Katniss smiles, the same blush appearing on her face, “it’s Katniss Mellark now but you can ask me to toast with you again if you want and the answer will be the same,” she tells me. “You can say all those words you’ve dreamt telling me…then when you’re done husband, you can show me how much you love me.”

…and so I do.

~~~

Epilogue

Katniss

My eyes are closed but there’s a sense of comfort and mellowness blossoming inside of me as I take in a deep breath to enjoy the familiar scent I’ve come to love.

In my relaxed state, it takes some effort to force my eyelids to open and when I do, my eyes focus on the edge of the bank as a paddle of ducks swim lazily across my father’s lake.

Gone are the electrified fences. The curfews. The peacekeepers. The fear.

This was the first place I took Peeta to see after the war had ended. So many lives were lost during our fight for freedom but for now, there is peace. So, we rebuilt our towns and our families and we vowed to honour the dead by living well.

As I take in the peaceful surroundings, the smell of freshly baked bread invades my senses and all thoughts of death and destruction is forgotten when I feel a pair of warm, muscled arms wrap around my rather large and protruding stomach.

Bringing a child into this world was something I told myself I would never experience and the idea of new life growing inside of me should seem utterly terrifying. Yet as my hand rests on top of his, waiting for our little one to let us know she’s awake, what I’m feeling right now has nothing to do with fear.

I lean back into his loving embrace and instinctively tilt my head to the side allowing him full access. The moment his lips start to trail kisses down my neck, an enticing shiver courses through my body and I hum my approval with great fervour.

“We don’t have to be afraid anymore,” he whispers softly.

“No, we don’t have to be afraid,” I whisper back, as we stop to watch his favourite colour slowly disappear below the horizon.

The End

#Springtime Edition 2020 #justajjfan #prompt 83 #prompt 116 #submission

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