.
Note: This is just me scratching a sudden itch.
~K~
An Unlikely Meeting
~K~
As is often the case, Katniss realizes that she is dreaming suddenly and in the middle of something. She can't recall what she'd been up to prior to this realization, but she is suddenly and inexplicably very much aware that she is dreaming. She reasons that she must have been close to awakening.
Still walking at a steady pace, she lets her gaze wander. There is no discernible shape to the world around her beyond a grey mist-like quality that sways, as if undecided about what it wants to be. What is she doing here?
With the same certainty she felt when she realized she was dreaming, she suddenly knows that she is wearing her father's old hunting jacket. Her bow is a comfortable weight on her hand and her quiver lies across her back. Was she hunting before realizing this is a dream? Yes, she is hunting.
She continues her stalk through the mist. Normally there are a dozen different factors that she has to pay attention to, but this is a dream. The concept of hunting doesn't necessarily match the practicalities of reality. She knows there is something out there for her to hunt; to make dinner out of and maybe trade parts of it.
An indeterminable amount of time later, she finally spots something. A shape in the mist. She halts, tightening her grip on her bow. An arrow is gently pulled from the quiver and slid into place. Katniss aims carefully, but she doesn't have a clear shot. The mist is moving, covering and revealing the vague shape with each passing second and without knowing what it is she can't say for sure that she'll hit it. She needs to get closer.
So she does, slowly and with great care approaching the shape, making no sound with her deliberate steps. She begins to circle around it and finally gets a better look through the grey mist.
She blinks in surprise when she realizes that the shape is no prey. It's human. A woman, judging by the long hair. She couldn't immediately tell because she appears to be sitting down in a large rocking chair made of some type of dark wood. Mahogany, a stray thought suggests.
She silently contemplates what her next move should be. She's supposed to be hunting but this is no prey, and her dream feels stuck, her brain unable to think of alternative courses of action beyond shoot and don't shoot.
She's broken out of her quandary by a voice suddenly speaking up.
"Won't you come closer, sweetheart?" the woman in the chair says, though she has not turned to look at Katniss. Her voice is gentle and unmistakably adult.
Katniss freezes for a second, suddenly anxious over having been spotted with no apparent giveaway and hesitant of approaching a stranger at their urging, but the thought melts away and she finds her posture straightening, her bow lowering as her feet carry her closer to and around the woman's chair.
Looking at her from the front, only one of the woman's characteristics firmly sets itself in Katniss' mind. Her belly is huge, ballooning the woman's green sundress to incredible proportions. She must be at least seven months along, if not longer.
Katniss recoils slightly, flinching away from the heavily pregnant woman, who chooses this moment to turn her gaze to Katniss. She hopes the older woman didn't notice Katniss' brief loss of composure.
"Hello Katniss," the older woman says, giving her a small smile. Katniss can't make out the features of her face but that doesn't surprise her. It is a dream, after all.
"Hi," she says, tentatively.
"How are you?" the woman asks, and Katniss detects some discomfort, as if she knows that she has to make conversation but dreads the attempt. She can sympathise.
"Um, alright," she replies after a few seconds. "You?" she adds, not knowing what else to say.
The woman shifts, sitting up a bit straighter and looking down at her expanding stomach, grimacing. "I've been better, clearly," she says.
She doesn't seem too thrilled at being pregnant, either. Katniss doesn't want to think about it. The idea of bringing a child into the world … into this world, is unbearable. She has enough things to worry about with just Prim to care for.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Katniss says because this is what she is feeling, and she finds that she has no filter on her speech. Is it because she's dreaming this? She would never express that thought out loud to someone but for some reason she blurted it out, seeking to comfort the woman in her own way.
The woman lets out a snort, rather dispelling the ladylike image she'd projected to Katniss so far. "Yes, well," she says, "Sometimes I am, too. We've always had a hard time letting go of things."
"We?" Katniss asks, frowning. The woman looks up at her, and Katniss has the impression that her brow is creasing.
"Don't you know who I am?" she asks.
"Should I?" Katniss asks, feeling uncomfortable and shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"Look at me, Katniss," the woman says, drawing her gaze back to her.
Katniss does. The vagueness that surrounded the woman lifts, and Katniss finally registers her features. Long dark hair, free of a braid, distinctive grey eyes and angles that Katniss recognizes from the mirror, even if they look more drawn on the woman. Rougher, like something isn't quite right. Katniss is looking at herself. Or at least, how she would imagine she'd look later in life.
And heavily pregnant.
Katniss' gaze returns to the woman's condition, mind blank with horror with this new realization.
"You're … me?" she stutters out.
"I'd say you're me, but yes, so it would seem."
"But … how…" Katniss trails off, unable to voice her thoughts. When no answer is forthcoming in the next few seconds, she raises her head to look back at the familiar grey eyes, looking at her in amusement.
"How what, Katniss?" her older self asks.
How can she be so casual about this? Katniss makes a vague motion towards the woman's bulging belly. "That," she says. "How did it … happen?"
Her older self chuckles. "Would you like a diagram, sweetheart?"
Katniss flushes, feeling heat rush to her cheeks as she sputters a denial.
"I know how it's done," she almost snarls. "But how-, why did you do it? I thought I-"
"Didn't want children?" her older self ventures with a knowing look. "Or marriage?"
All Katniss can manage to do is nod.
"Well … I suppose we didn't. For a long time."
"What happened?"
"We change our mind."
Katniss could have screamed at the woman's curt, ineffective replies. She didn't sound like that, did she? And why did she include Katniss in that 'we'?
"Why?" she asks again.
Her older self opens her mouth, as if to say something, then closes it. She looks to the side, her long hair drawn over her shoulder. For a minute, neither speaks. "Things changed," she eventually replies, tone withdrawn. "We changed."
"That doesn't tell me why."
A small smile blooms on her older self's face and her fingers flex, as if searching for something she'd instinctively expected to be there. "It's because of him, really. We were always slow on the uptake, weren't we?"
Him. The one who … the one who got her pregnant. The thought itself makes Katniss queasy, and she suddenly hates that man. That mysterious figure of whom the only thing she knows is that he shows up sometime in her future and destroys her plans and her determination.
"Who did this to you?" she asks and is momentarily startled by the venom in her voice. She looks around for-, what? Another figure? There's no one else on the mist surrounding them.
Older Katniss turns to her and smiles again. "Well…" she begins to say, but pauses. Her smile fades as she studies her.
"Go on," Katniss snaps.
Her older self shakes her head. "I don't think I will. I'm sorry."
Her eyes widen, and she must look as baffled as she feels. "Why not?"
The woman gives her a wistful sliver of a smile. "Because," she says, "we are a stubborn creature. I wouldn't put it past us to destroy our chance at happiness out of principle if I told you who it was."
Katniss takes a minute to digest this, fighting down the urge to snap at the woman. What kind of reasoning is that? Didn't she have a right to know? The right to know who knocks her up in the future?
Katniss shakes her head at that thought. It's absurd. She's not going to have children. She's not going to love anyone, or marry anyone, or provide even more victims for the Capitol to reap. She doesn't know what happened to this woman in front of her, but she won't do the same. She can't.
Who could it be, in any case? The number of men whose name she knows can be counted on one hand and of those, who is even remotely her age? Gale, of course, but she won't marry Gale, or anyone for that matter. But if it's not him, who else could it be? A shock of blond and blue flash in her eyes but she shakes the thought away. That's even more ridiculous.
Katniss decides that whoever her mystery potential future husband is, she meets him sometime in the future for the first time. Her older self looks … well, older. Who knows who she meets and when? The Seam isn't that large, but she doesn't know everyone in it yet.
"Aren't you worried?" Katniss asks her future self, not quite managing to keep the challenge from her tone. "That I won't meet this person if you don't tell me who it is? Maybe things will go differently for me."
Her older self studies her face, lines creasing her forehead. Katniss doesn't back down. She's not beholden to this … this future. It doesn't have to be that way. It won't be.
"I suppose it's possible," her older self concedes. "But I believe it would've happened either way, and it's less risky than the alternative. I trust him. He will find us. He will find you."
Katniss frowns, her fingers clenching around her bow. "What's so special about him anyway?" she bites out. "Why would you go as far having his children, after everything we've been through?"
Her older self frowns, looking down at her stomach and rubbing a hand over it absently, face locked in a contemplative frown. Katniss has to strain to hear her next words.
"You don't understand, Katniss," the woman speaks. "We need him. Like … like the air we breathe. It takes us a long while to figure it out, but we do. In time, we'll grow to need this, too."
Katniss narrows her eyes. "Stop saying we like you're including me," she shouts, making her older self's eyes widen. "I'm not you. I'm not going to be you."
She doesn't need people. She's the one who is needed. That's how it's been since her father died, five years ago. Her mother and sister need her. She doesn't need anyone. She can't afford to.
But if she does go on to need someone, then … where does that leave-
"What about Prim?" she demands as soon as the thought forms in her. Her older self stills, the hand rubbing her belly freezing and Katniss can't see her face but she gets a sense of trepidation from her.
"Who's taking care of Primrose if you're off playing house with someone else?" Katniss accuses, and she can't believe she's looking at herself; even a version of herself. She would never … she would never do any of those things.
It takes a long time for the older woman to speak but Katniss doesn't mind. She doesn't know how long it's been when the woman finally speaks.
"We … we always do what we can for Prim," her older self says, tone low but sure, with an undercurrent of … something? Katniss can't figure it out. "Prim has always been our first priority. You know that. I would never …" the woman trails off, shaking her head once, and doesn't elaborate.
Katniss relaxes her posture just a little, feeling mollified. At least Prim is okay. Still taken care of. She can see that the older woman cares for her sister. Their sister, she supposes. Some things are just constant, and that feels right. Her love for Prim is constant. She feels kinship with this woman for the first time.
"I'm sorry," she says, surprising herself. She hadn't meant to speak. "I'm not going to do what you did. I'm not going to love, or marry, or carry your man's children." She doesn't want to say those things, but she thinks them, and her mouth opens of its own accord.
The older woman gives her a smile. "I'm sure you believe that," she says. "But you see Katniss, the thing about us … we'll always depend on him. Always gravitate … always find our way back to him. It can get annoying, sometimes, the things our husband is willing to forgive. One day, you'll understand."
Katniss can feel it. A sort of pull. It's like she has two bodies; one here in this mist, one in her home next to her sleeping sister. She begins to feel her body on the bed more and more.
She's waking up.
She turns frantic eyes to her older self. Not yet, she thinks. I still have so many questions.
"I-, I have to go," is all she manages to say. She doesn't want to go. She takes a step forward, reaching for her. But as always when one fights the dream, it dissolves all the faster. The mist thickens and the distance between them seems to grow.
The pregnant woman smiles. "Be strong, Katniss," she tells her. "It's going to be a big, big day."
"Wait-" Katniss shouts but the woman -and the mist- are gone and she finds herself staring at the backs of her eyelids, now firmly awake.
She feels the sense of urgency she felt towards the end of the dream, but the details escape her. She was … talking to someone? A woman? What were they saying?
She sits up on the bed she shares with Prim, careful not to disturb her. It's not time for her to wake up yet.
She finds her fingers shaking slightly and brings them up to her eyes, watching them until they stop. How curious. What had her dream been about, she wonders. It must have been unsettling. If only she could remember.
Katniss doesn't think about it for too long. She is aware of the futility of trying to remember a dream; like attempting to keep water in your hands. Besides, she needs to get up. There are other, much more important things for her to worry about.
Today, after all, is Reaping Day.
~K~