Warning: The following narratives mention, describe, or allude to uncomfortable and possibly triggering topics including, but not limited to, torture, suicide, self-harm, prostitution, starvation, rape,child-abuse, racism, cursing, and graphic anatomy. These are in no way meant to hurt or distress you. Please use your good judgment before reading and feel free to discuss certain matters in the comments section. I will appreciate and respond to everything you have to say.
Wednesday, 3rd week of November, 73rd Winter AN (anno nix – in the year of Snow)
Peeta, pt. 1:
She often arrives at Rising Hour, when the soft, billowing tops of rolls and sweet buns swell under the mellifluous heat of the morning ovens. While his hands arrange the swollen, sticky dough in neat little lines to rise, his gaze minds the streaked kitchen windows to catch a glimpse of her slipping by in the empty alleys, bag bloated with game to trade. And when she strides past, hair glossy and skin gilded by the salmon-honeyed hues of dawn, he'd dare say his heart rises quicker than the yeasted goods before him, growing fast and sudden in his throat, choking his breath like bitter weeds in the flower boxes.
An overproof, they call that – when the temperature is too hot or the yeasting period too long and too slow. The loaves fall like sinkholes in the oven and the Mellarks are forced to eat dense, gummy bread for the following weeks. Peeta knows it's been much too hot for far too long because his hands have gotten sweaty at the sight of her since first grade. His heart always caves as she disappears out of sight.
This morning, though, she is early. The kitchen is still cold, the dough still sticky as he startles out of his kneading reverie to watch her race past, game bag flopping emptily against her hip. Alongside her long ebony braid, Katniss Everdeen's intense gaze is one of her trademark features, thus his stab of worry when he notices her moony eyes and mussy hair.
If he were in the practice of talking to her, he might ask her about the conflicted crease between her eyes or the preoccupied slump of her shoulders. Even so, today would not be the day. Today is Bake Day – his day to stay home and tend the ovens while Miche goes to school and Emmer, too old for classes now, hauls shipments from the trainyard. It has never bothered Peeta to miss his lessons – they've all turned to coal production since Reaping Grade anyway, and his mother reminded him often enough that he would never amount to anything more than a baker, Like your useless father. She's made it cuttingly-clear his hands will never touch coal in any form.
Watching the first snowflakes swoop from the sky, Peeta dwells on the impossibility of this objective as each tiny dancer, crystalline white, fouettés into the black street embers, a diamond turned to coal. Nothing is sacred here, he thinks, nothing is safe.
Come noon, the lithe little dancers have doubled in size, flowering the sky with a crisp, brisk smell. The ovens are blazing merrily and the dough needs punching. Going about his chores, Peeta thinks this is as fine a day as ever to skip school. He imagines how icy the classrooms must be, with only a grungy pot-bellied stove sputtering in the front corner and all the Seam children huddled in the back. He remembers with relief Katniss' heavy leather jacket and snarled wool scarf, and wanders towards the cold drip-drops of the cracked windows, trying to cool the fever-inducing heat of the kitchen from his cheeks. The wind is full of whistles and snaps and little gasps of air from the people outside.
"I'm expecting crowds soon." Bran Mellark bustles in, wiping his hands on a soiled apron folded around his waist. "There always are before a big storm. Sometimes I think the crowds are a better indicator of the weather than the Capitol forecasts."
He smiles affably at his own joke and knocks Peeta between the wide expanse of his shoulders, "Put some more sweet buns to rise. Bitter winters always taste better with some icing on top."
Lilwen Mellark flies in like a banshee, barking a scornful retort, "You'd be better off baking more rye molasses loaves. If they share half a brain between the bunch, they'll want something that'll last the next few days of the storm."
She stops to prod Bran in the chest, "And if you're using the only half of a brain you've got, you'll raise the prices on everything to make up for snow closures."
The heavy tread of footsteps past the shop front catches her attention and she bustles to the tilling counter, throwing over her shoulder, "The crowds are here already, you better have something for me to sell."
Bran smiles wryly at his son, pulling down bags of flour from the stock shelves and snorting out the white clouds that settle into his wiry beard. A careful knock raps at the garden door and Bran makes a surprised noise as he straightens to answer it. Cold, delicious air flows in from the open entryway.
"I'll admit, I didn't think I'd be seeing you today, young lady."
The soft, smoky lilt of the Seam folk answers back in a delicate soprano, "I know, I'm sorry, sir. The snow slows things down a bit."
"Of course, of course, it's not a problem. I can hear the market crowds out and about already. Please, come in for a bit and warm up, you must be freezing."
Her muffled protests are interrupted as Bran pulls the door open wider and ushers her in, saying, "It will take just as long to bargain inside, I promise you. I know you must be in a hurry to get home before the weather worsens."
Her boots track snow onto the kitchen tiles and Peeta glimpses blue fingertips peeking out of raveling mitten flaps. He gives her a gracious smile, a simple nod. Her lips press into a thin line of acknowledgment.
"All alone today?" his father asks. The rose on her cheeks deepens and she ducks her head.
"No matter," Bran looks kindly at her, "What've we got today?"
She tugs her mittens off and pulls out three small squirrels, furry and limp. "There wasn't time to skin them beforehand, but I can do it now if you like."
Bran nods appreciatively, but says, "Not to worry, I can do that just fine. What'll you take for them? A rye molasses loaf?"
If Katniss is astounded by the offer, she hides it well and simply says, after a guarded hesitation, "That'll be fine."
Peeta is astonished by his father's trade – three squirrels are worth half a loaf of day-old bran bread, but he watches him reach for a sweet-smelling molasses loaf still crackling from the fire.
While he wraps it steaming in brown wax paper, a particularly long whistle cuts through the subdued winterland and ends in a sickening snap, like fire-crackers during the annual Tribute Parades. A crowd runs by the shop front towards the square, drumming the frozen cobblestones in mass hysteria. Another whistle, shrill and wailing, slices the air. Craack
Katniss' eyes go wide and bright, body tense and tight. Peeta glances at his father, who seems dazed and lost in bygone years.
"Is that a… No, it's been so long since I heard – we haven't had a whipping in decades…"
At the mention of whipping Peeta looks to Katniss, but she is already twisting around, slipping on the wet floor tiles and striking her head against the door jamb as she tears out into the slushy alley, mittens dropped in thoughtless urgency.
For a precarious second, Peeta stands perfectly still, but the sound of the whip singing releases him like a floodgate into the cold, glum passageway, skidding against the brick walls as he peers over the gathering multitude of district people. Peacekeepers rush past, shoving onlookers out of their way, yelling and shaking batons to disperse the crowds. Craack.
People move aside to let Peeta through, dark Seam eyes glaring at him warily.
"What're you doin' here boy?"
"You'll only make it worse. Scat!"
"There's nothing to do – best leave while you can."
But Peeta presses bravely on and on and on, and he wishes he would stop because the whip never stops, never relents, never quiets, until –
"STOP! Stop, you'll kill him, you – STOP!"
At the edge of the crowd now, Peeta watches Katniss' tiny, bundled form clutch at a peacekeeper's upstretched arm, whip in hand, silver Head uniform spattered with countless garnet jewels of blood. Directly in line with the slick lash's licks, the limp corpse of a dark-haired, bloodied boy is bound to a gnarled, upright post. Dark eddies of blood slither between the cobblestones, making the ground sticky and wet. The toes of Peeta's boots are stained a cherry wine, and when he moves, he leaves crimson kisses on the soggy snow.
The whip is mid whistle when the peacekeeper throws it to the ground, grabbing Katniss by her jacket collar. There is such force behind his violent jostling that her arms slip out of the sleeves and her scarf chafes raw and red. He tosses her aside with indifferent ferocity.
Tripping over the glaze-eyed body of Commander Cray, Katniss' head smacks against the ice with a nauseating thud. Her braid dips into the pools of blood pulsing languidly from Cray's neck, a slick smiling slit. The Head peacekeeper bends to retrieve the cat o' nines and turns with mild amusement as Katniss scrapes herself off the ground, placing her body between the boy's shredded skin and the thirsty flick of whip.
It occurs to Peeta that he's never seen this Head before, all hard, calloused brawn and none of the soft, hoary belly that belonged to Cray. Seeing Katniss suck in heaving gulps of defiance, the man smiles icily, and rasps, "What's the boy to you, girl? He broke the law. This is a poacher's punishment."
Katniss croaks back, winded, "Under what ruling? We haven't had a whipping in ages."
"It's a new era, sweetheart." His teeth glisten white and sharp, "Old Cray has been dispatched. Welcome to the rule of Romulus Thread. Now, if you don't move, you'll feel it firsthand just like your friend here. I can guarantee you won't get up from this one."
His hand flickers to the gun clipped at his waist, but Katniss doesn't move, and the crowd is reverent in their silence.
With one fluid movement, Thread draws the gun and aims between her eyes, squinting for accuracy. In the same moment, the crowd erupts in panicked tumult, pushing against each other, swallowing Peeta even as he struggles to reach Katniss and pull her out of the way. He is walled in on all sides when the crowd settles enough to glimpse a younger peacekeeper with startlingly red hair and a blooming bruise along his jaw approach Thread cautiously, murmuring counsel under his breath. Thread looks disdainfully at his underling before he sweeps his gaze back to Katniss, dips the barrel slightly and shoots, bright, sharp and sudden, into the bitter air.
The square is hushed with disbelief, motionless except for that broad-shouldered baker-boy wrestling his way to the front, stopping stock-still at the sight of a slender, raven-haired rebel crumpled on the blood-slicked stones.
If District 12 had been looking at a clock, they would have realized that it takes exactly six seconds for the first citizen, a hard-boned Seam widow named Purnia who bathes bodies at the mortuary, to give the opening mutinous cry, "Murder!" before the horde of seven hundred onlookers surge forward with shared strength and shouts of:
Unarm him!
Bastard!
No right! No justice!
Down with the Peace!
There is a heat and a passion and a movement that Peeta recognizes too well, a fast flowering excitement that can only end in a collapse of structure.
Overproof.
A/N:
Firstly, I'd like to thank FortuneFaded2012 and whiskeyneat from the deepest fathoms of my heart for advising me on all my run-on sentences and over-zealous similes and my confusing plots, but most of all, for simply being there to encourage me, brainstorm with me, and celebrate my progress! These betas have made a metamorphic difference in this story that I don't want to go unnoticed. Much love to you!
As you might have noticed, these chapters are the product of their support - revised and beautified by their tender attentions. I do encourage you to re-read these chapters, as they are so much more improved. Edited chapters 2 and 3 will arrive soon.
Now some trivia. I'd like to provide little explanations at the end of each chapter explaining name origins, world-building, and general tidbits that might provoke some fun discussions in the comments. So here we go:
Anno Nix is a term I've coined to label the years following the First Rebellion, starting with the first Hunger Games (1 Anno Nix) and advancing with each consecutive Game. Similar to AD, or Anno Domini, which means In the Year of the Lord, Anno Nix means In the Year of Snow, denoting President Snow's despotic reign.
Peeta's brothers, and father, are named according to their trade, just like Peeta. Bran alludes to the husks of a grain, sometimes separated from the flour and sold separately for a discounted price. Miche is the name of a Parisian-style sourdough, usually made from a natural leavener and a high percentage of whole wheat flour. And Emmer refers to emmer wheat, also known as farro.
Lastly, I know that in cannon Purnia is a Peacekeeper, but keeping with my exaggerated themes of gender/race/age discrimination, I chose to make Peacekeeping a male-dominated career. Purnia is still present in the narrative as a Seam resident, though.
Thank you, all of you, for following along and visiting me in the comments. It's such an inspiration to continue writing when I read all your musings and laughter. See you there!
Much love,
theory of mice