Blackberries are safe to eat. I know that much from before. I've had small blackberries during the festival's for our victors. They were small and juicy and I ate them with melted cheese. I mean, you can't live off of them, but they won't kill you.
I pop a few into my mouth and look over my shoulder. Something moved, I saw it. Again. I turn fully around and glance back and forth between the trees. After a minute, I go back to the berries because my stomach doesn't let me do anything else.
I slowly slide my hand to my belt and knife. In 8, scissors are a bit expensive, so us poor folk use knives to cut fabric evenly. And we're good at it.
The minute I turn around some girl my age has an arrow pointed at my forehead and my knife is set against her throat. If I wanted, I could sliced her throat so easily it would've looked like suicide. But this has happened before. A standoff like this between us.
"So, your back." She chirps. "No wonder everything's empty today." I empty my palm of blackberries into my mouth and smile.
"I'm scaring of game, huh? Sorry, Katty." She lowers her bow and I slip my knife back into its sheath. I look from the bush to her and she nods, telling me their safe. Her game bag is really light, so I decided to help. After all, she has a family to feed, just like I did at once.
I know what it feels like to come home as a disappointment. My brothers, sister, and father all did their best to feed themselves. I'm the only one who could hunt, though. The only one who could distract the Peacekeepers and the only one who could balance herself along the roof to jump over the fence.
I first met Katniss when I ran into Gale a few weeks ago. Its still Winter, but then there was snow on the ground. I was confused and hungry. He didn't greet me as hostile as she did, though. It seemed like he understood that my family was in some unspeakable tragic accident back in 8.
I remember saying it. Explaining what happened. I didn't cry, I don't think I ever did. We were sitting on a log together and I kept looking at the ground. He said he wouldn't let me starve and I asked why. "Because if I did your family would've died in vein. You made it out for a reason."
Katniss and I walk along the stream as I pluck berries for us. When we come across my tree, a tall sturdy oak I tend to sleep in, I reach my arm into the hollow bark of the trunk to hand Katniss a turkey. It w as rather small, and there was at least three stab wounds, but it was game.
"Where did you get this? You do it yourself?" I nod and smile. "I'm pretty good with a knife," I say. "I'm just used to cutting fabric instead of skin." She grabs the carcus and sits down on a log. As she skins it, I pick some more berries.
Finally, after she's done, she asks me, "Have you been in The Hob yet?" I turn to her, cheeks packed and shake my head. "Come on, then." She motions for me to follow her, skinned turkey in hand.
The Hob turns out to be a place where 12 trades. Illegally, might I add. But the Capitol doesn't lift a finger for them, so I can understand why they have their own means of doing things. Also, I like the fence here. It's never really charged, and you never have to jump over it.
Katty introduces me to all the people around The Hob and Seam, since I've never really been inside the fence here before. For some spare beads I have in my pocket, I trade for a fish from a blonde women named Moira. And for some loose cotton, I received some herbs and berries from a man named Raab.
Finally, after the scene in The Hob was over, we head over to the Bakery. Katniss sells two squirrel's to the man there for some sweet-smelling burnt loaves. After we head away from there, she walks along the unpaved road to a small home.
She turns to me, "This is...my house." I nod as a yellow, scruffy, unkempt cat rubs against my leg. "Aww, who's this?" I bend down and pet his head. A girl a bit younger than me comes out of the house, and turns to her. "Kat...miss?"
I stand up and smile. "It's actually Katty." Katty shakes her head and hands her game bag to the girl. "Prim, take this to mom." Prim motions to me. "Katniss, who is she?" She shakes her head and shoos Prim inside. "Your eating then going back. I can't handle one more mouth. Alright? Don't get too attached."
I frown, but nod in understanding. So that's what she thinks of me as. Another mouth to feed. I'll bet anything Gale doesn't think of me that way. But I walk inside the small shelter, thankful for contact with another person.
There's a women, looking at the skinned turkey and Prim, inspecting me. The women looks up and sees the fish and herbs. She looks somewhat surprised but her expression changes to pleased. I decide she may have been beautiful like Katty before, but isn't anymore.
"Who's this?" I hand the fish to her and she sets it on the table. "A friend." Katniss says right before Prim takes the herbs from me and sets them on the counter. "Ashleen Olnstine. She's an orphan." I'm not shocked at her bluntness, but I am at the way the women stops what she's doing just to look at me.
"An orphan?" I hesitate as everyone looks at me and nod. I decide not to say I was from another district, because these people were looking at me like lost puppies in the rain. "What...happened to your family?" Prim asks shakily. I can tell she's uneasy so I'm trying to be casual about it.
"They died. In a fire." Prim's expression goes grim and the women walks over to me and places her hands on my shoulders. Her next words are breathtakingly vulnerable. "We...don't have much. But if you like," Before she can finish I exchange a look with Katniss and shake my head.
"That's alright. I know how to hunt, and I already have a home, anyway." Her expression changes slightly. "Where?" I couldn't bring myself to tell her I lived in a tree. Or that I don't have a home at all. But before I can really say anything, Katniss steps in. "Nowhere, she's staying here."
"But I thought that I was perfectly fine on my own!" I turn toward her angrily confused. She just looks at me with those dark Seam eyes that seem to be a trademark around here. "You were. But now your staying here. Besides... Your family's gone. You don't have anyone."
It finally hits me like a crumbling building. I am alone. My family is dead, my district behind me and I don't have a home because of my stupid decision to run across the country. I finally do it. I cry. Hard choking sobs begin and my shoulders shake while my knees buckle under me.
Prim bends down to hold me and my tears fall down my cheeks like I've never cried before. And I don't think I have. I don't even know Prim, but I think she's crying too. And holding me. Why is she holding me? I guess that she's went through something similar, but otherwise I just hold her tight I think she's gonna break.
That evening, I ate fish stew for the first time.