Brief summary: 23 years after the end of the rebellion, Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen's 15 year-old daughter, Summer, never has had the normal childhood she craves. Born under the shade of her famous parents, Summer chafed under lofty expectations that she wants no part of – expectations that have driven her to loneliness and pain. But in the ensuing twilight descending upon Panem, the reserved daughter of District 12's rebellious heroes will be forced to forge her own legacy – or fall victim to the darkness in her own heart.


Author's Note: This is the story of Peeta and Katniss's daughter, Summer, and the path shrouded in fog that she'll have to walk. Due to the sake of populating this story, some minor changes are in effect: Prim and Finnick aren't dead. President Snow's descendants were never found in the Capitol. Katniss and Peeta had their first child – in this, their son is the oldest – only five years after the revolution ended, rather than 15. Suzanne Collins owns The Hunger Games, Panem, Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, Annie, Haymitch, etc… Enjoy the story! And as always, I enthusiastically welcome feedback! And yes, I am still working on the "From Dust" series…just diversifying.


District 12, 23 Years After the Rebellion

I never liked the cold.

I suppose I should have gotten used to it by now. After all, during the three months of winter, all it does here in District 12 is snow. The trees, the leaves, the sounds of birds – everything's covered up by a thick carpet of white. I can deal fine with the heat of summer – there's ways to beat that. But the cold gets everywhere – even when my dad lights a bright, cheery yellow fire in our brick hearth back home, it doesn't keep out the angry knives of winter. There's no escape for three months.

Ugh, I'm complaining again. I keep telling myself I'll stop doing that – my mom makes sure to remind me that I'm a "complainer" on a frequent basis. It's the little things like that that make me wish she just left me alone.

You probably know my parents. Most everyone in Panem does; who doesn't hear the story of "Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the star-crossed lovers of District 12" everywhere, regardless of district – even now, more than twenty years after the rebellion they sparked came to an end? You'd think someone would get tired of retelling the same worn-out story, but somehow, it's always fun.

Fun to everyone but me, at least.

I kick a hard clump of snow out of my way as I walk by the district's town square. The old buildings of stone and brick look quiet against the snow as antiquated sentinels on a muted canvas. Sandwiched between two gray hovels stands my dad's bakery. It's a slumping two-story building, charming in a way with yellow light slipping out of two frosty windows. Even in the dead of winter, my dad's somehow managed to keep a planter of flowers alive in the windowsill. It's fitting – the small, white flowers are from a plant called a duck potato, or arrowhead.

Most people know the plant by another name, however – katniss.

I walk right past the bakery without stopping in. I don't feel like seeing my dad right now as I shamble past the charred rebar-and -ruins of the former Hall of Justice, a reminder to the fires of rebellion that have long since died. The snow depresses me as I keep my head down, careful to avoid being noticed by the two dozen or so people going about their midday chores. It's not just my dad – he's nice enough for a father, but I really don't want to speak to anyone right now. Leave me alone, world.

Of course, it never works that way. The blonde-haired boy with the boyish face who jogs over to me spotted me long before I noticed him. Flint is a good guy – he's always been nice to me when a lot of the other fifteen year-olds in the district have given me a hard time over the years. Some of them want the spotlight that shines on my family; others just see me as an easy target. I guess it's hard not to pick on the quiet girl.

"Summer," Flint calls to me as he strolls up. "Um, saw you walking around. Just wanted to say hi."

"Well…hi," I reply. What am I supposed to say to that? Sometimes Flint's nonthreatening demeanor can frustrate me – it's not as if I'm full of quick, witty retorts to everything everyone says.

"I, uh," he picks around for words as I shove my hands into my pants' pockets. Did I mention it's cold? "I like your coat. It matches your eyes."

"My eyes are blue," I say. "My coat's brown. I don't really think they match."

"Well, your hair's brown," Flint recovers awkwardly. Oops. "So…okay, fine. I'm not good at fashion and that kind of thing. Like matching clothes. Why do you always wear your hair like that, anyway?"

He picks my ponytail off my shoulder with a cautious hand. Flint's subtleties often make me wonder what he really thinks of me. Is he just trying to be friendly? If it's more than that, he's certainly hesitant to make a move. "It's simple," I answer, looking down at the snow. "I'm not gonna spend an hour putting things in my hair like Hera."

I roll my eyes as I let the name of District 12's resident gossip roll of my tongue. Hera's fifteen like me, but born in District 1 before her family moved here. I don't know why anyone would do that, but they certainly brought all their District 1 idiosyncrasies with them. I don't understand fashion and such things. Maybe it's me who's weird, given that Hera commands attention from virtually every boy in the district – and thinks I'm less than dirt. What's beneath dirt; lava? Or just earthworms?

"Hm," Flint just murmurs to my comment, his brown eyes trickling over my thick coat. "Were you…going home?"

"Ever?"

"Well…obviously, but I meant now. Were you walking back to your home?"

I don't want to go back to my family's house in the Seam right now. No one will be home, which is a nice perk. My dad's at the bakery; my older brother, Reed, has plenty of friends of his own to hang around with; and my mom…will be out hunting. That's seemingly all she ever does when my dad's baking at the shop: That and hanging around old Haymitch Abernathy (although I don't see why he's exciting. What's fun about feeding geese? All they do is poop an quack.) Home alone would give me some peace and quiet. However, I don't want to go back to that place until my mom's running around the district, threatening to scalp me if I don't "get my butt back home this instant."

"No," I answer Flint truthfully. "I don't really have anything to do right now. Why?"

"I kinda just wanted…" Flint begins. "Um, just wanted to go walk around the forest a bit. It's snowy, kinda nice. It'd look weird if it was just me, though…d'you want to join me?"

Snow? Nice? Ha! "Why's that weird?"

"I dunno; I just think people see someone by themselves as…different, I guess. Strange."

"I must be really strange, then," I murmur, looking past Flint and into the snow.

"No, I don't mean that," he backpedals. "It's just…let's talk about something else. You wanna come?"

I'm worried about running into my mom accidentally – heavens forbid that – but I agree. Outside of Flint, my cousin Iris, and a girl a year older than me named Vesta, I don't have anyone else my age to do anything with. Ugh, there I go again…

We walk for a few minutes in silence, just strolling through the snow-covered, barren, trees without a word. The snow muffles everything here. It's completely quiet – something even I can enjoy despite the biting cold. Blood rushes to my cheeks in the frigid air, but if it wasn't for the chill, Flint would actually be right – it is sort of nice in the woods like this.

"Summer," he finally breaks the silence, refusing to make eye contact as he speaks. "I've always wanted to know…I figure you don't get much time for this kind of thing, what with your parents and all. What's it like with them?"

"Well, I think my mom's disappointed that I don't shoot animals like she does."

"Not like that. I mean…just, all that lack of privacy, where everyone in Panem knows everything about you, regardless of what you do or don't do."

How do I even start this – and why bring it up? "It's…I don't like all the people that come from the Capitol or the Districts out west, or whatever. I wish they'd just leave us alone, rather than always tromping to our house, bombarding my parents with questions about this and that news and how they feel about it. Or the history people who show up at the door from time to time, wanting my mom's recount of the war…I get tired of it. Them. Cameras."

"Do they ever ask you anything?"

"No. They ask my parents about me, but they don't ask me anything. It's like I don't even control my own life or how most people know me, like – sorry, I'm just complaining. You probably don't want to know all the little things like this."

"No, I do," Flint's looking right at me, and I look up to realize that I've nearly walked straight into a tree. So much for multitasking.

"Why?" I ask. Truth be told, I'm always a little suspicious of people who want to know more about me. Maybe it's all the "journalist" types who never bothered to ask me about myself – simply getting it from second-hand information, like my parents – who make me wary of people getting close.

"What you have to say's interesting."

"I'm interesting?" I raise an eyebrow.

"That came out wrong," he stammers. "Look, Summer, you're…a friend. I just feel like you never get stuff off your chest. If it were me, that'd hurt after building up."

"Maybe I like it that way," I reply, turning my face away from Flint. "Maybe it hurts more to tell people things."

"That sounds like an excuse."

"I don't know!" I burst out. That was a little too harsh of me – but now I can't help it. This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't want to discuss. I'm terrible at managing my feelings. "I don't know, Flint! I don't even understand myself. Why should anybody else? You said it. I'm just strange. Weird. I'm supposed to be some prodigal daughter of two famous people, but all I want is to just live my life. I don't belong here. I'm supposed to be something I'm not, and I end up being nothing."

I stop myself on the verge of tears. The last thing I need to do in front of Flint is cry – show one of the only people who even talks to me like I'm a normal person that I'm really not.

"Summer…" Flint starts, drawing closer to me. I turn my back – why do I do that? – and face a frosty tree, ashamed of my reaction. I'm embarrassing myself. I shouldn't have gone on this walk; every time someone asks personal stuff, I always do something dumb and end up humiliated.

It's getting colder.

Flint doesn't get the chance to say something. In what seems like an instant, someone's calling out to us – not my parents or any adult, but several voices I absolutely do not want to hear at my most vulnerable.

"Look at this! How sweet – did we have an argument?"

I wipe my eyes quickly on my shoulder, looking up a snowy hill to see red-haired Hera standing haughtily before me. With her hand on her skewed hips and her lip pouted just enough to be noticeable, she looks like some hideous Capitol ideal of fashion. Her red-and-green jacket, imported from District 1, doesn't help. Standing beside her is a hulk of a brown-haired boy lacking in any form of intelligence named Charr. For lack of a better word, he's a complete moron – if a brawny one. Perhaps it's all that meat that keeps him warm in the winter.

Two other boys flank them, but I can't tell who they are from here. No doubt people I'd rather not talk to.

"Hera, now's not a great time," Flint begins weakly. Unfortunately with this crowd, weak isn't the way to be taken seriously.

"Piss off. What are you, her boyfriend?" Hera swaggers down the hill right at me, chewing on something like a cow. "We all know she couldn't get one anyway. Ain't that right, Summer Bummer? More like dumber."

Charr's laugh at her remark is positively porcine. It sounds somewhere between a choking noise and a long exhale – either way, I'm hesitant to even call it a "laugh."

"Go away," I mutter softly. I can't be strong to people like this.

"Nope," Hera says, sticking a hand against a tree and leaning on one leg. "Don't think I will. What were you telling limp-dick here? Oh wait…"

She squints her beady gray eyes at my face, her mouth turning upwards in a cruel smile before announcing loudly to everyone present, "Ohh…must've been bad. Were you crying?"

Hera's following laugh isn't idiotic like Charr's – it's sadistic.

"Mommy and daddy not here to give you a hug?" Hera remarks as soon as she's done. "Must be tough, being such a disappointment. Everyone knows your mom thinks you're a failure. I mean, it's not like she's lying…"

"Leave me alone," I pull my coat around my body tighter, trying to fend off the icy chill of winter and Hera's words. I won't deny it – they hurt. I'm hurt. Why can't she leave me alone? "I didn't do anything. Just go away."

"Hera…" Flint's attempt at defending me goes beyond "sad" and into the realm of "Classical tragedy."

"Thought I told you to beat it," she snipes at him before turning back to me. Of course. I'm the "fun" target. "Looks like you're cold, Summer Bummer. How 'bout I fix that for you?"

Without warning, Hera pulls back her hand and strikes me with the flat of her palm. The blow lands squarely on my lower lip with force, catching me by surprise and sending me straight down into the snow. My rear lands in the stuff with a plop, freezing my pants in an instant. Immediately I'm aware of the pain in my lip, but I only comprehend it when I see the drops of scarlet blood painting a hurting picture on the ground's frozen canvas.

"Ha!" Hera laughs, standing over me as I try to make myself small. "Just sit there, then. Don't even get up. C'mon Charr. Let's go find something less disappointing to do. I'm bored with this stupid girl today."

Charr's grunting "laughter" is all I hear as I watch Hera walk away. She turns after three steps, welling up a ball of spit a hucking it right on my coat. I turn my face away in preparation for a second shot, but she's turning back again, leaving. I'm not even normal enough to bully for more than ten minutes, I guess.

"Don't listen to her," Flint says quietly after Hera and her pack leaves. "Are you okay, Summer?"

"Leave me alone."

"What?"

"Leave me alone!" I shout at him. Flint doesn't deserve that, but I'm tired of being humiliated today. I'm tired of the embarrassment; of people watching me get kicked around. I just want to be alone.

Flint stands over me for a minute before walking away as well, uncertain enough of my mood to not even lend a hand getting up. It's fine – I don't really want to get up. I watch blood dribble off my lip into the snow – drip, drip drip. It's a microcosm for my life. This snow was perfect and white before I came along; more and more, it seems everyone's life would be better without me messing things up, too. I don't know what I did to earn this life, but it must have been pretty bad.

It's not just Hera and her little gang – it's the adults my mom and dad know, looking at me patronizingly as if I'm disabled. It's a dismissing hand from my mom, telling me I'm not wanted as she broods over some issue or memory. It's a sympathizing word from my dad, tossed out not in empathy, but in pity. This life of recognition – of lofty expectations where everyone knows your name? It's not special. It's not something precious. It just hurts.

The snow's cold as I lay in it. I never liked the cold.