Moves and Counter Moves: Hannah

Chapter One : The Reaping

Saturday 27th June
District 12

Hannah, skinning her last rabbit, when she hears a foreign movement from afar in the forest, halting her own movements. The disturbance too clumsy for even the largest animal. Gingerly, sucking the still warm blood off one of her fingers, she keeps her head raised for a good few minutes, staring into the evergreen foliage before returning to the carcass. Her work is still not clean or as neat as others her senior and it took two of her arrows to bring this small animal down. The first in the rump, before the second pierced through the choke. Because for all her father's strictness and training, Hannah has never experienced real hunger; a thirst for survival. Other than perhaps, the affection of her father, like she watches the village men bestow upon their daughters. Or like she remembers in sweet bitterness, how he used to bestow on her when she was a very little girl.

The woods of District 12 has been her habitat for the last five years. Hannah spends her days hunting meat for her grandmother's place at the hob; as well as day dreaming/ occasionally reenacting previous Victors' kills, contriving and practicing kills that would make her Victor. Her old carer often grumbles that, Hannah doesn't know meat from meat. A concept her father is all too happy about.

Hannah hears more clumsy cracks, and brushes her long white blonde hair out of her face, smearing the locks with animal blood. The tie she had put in much earlier, long lost. Most girls her age have their mothers or sisters weave their hair out of their face, but Hannah has neither of those. She lives alone in the woods, and only has her father and the old woman that live in the village that lies beyond the forest, the electric fence and the sparse meadow. Hannah feels a crimson droplet fall down her face and anticipates it reaching her tongue. The intruder is coming from behind her.

Steadily sneaking up on her.

She'll wait, she decides, until the last minute to attack. Feign ignorance.

The blade reaches the periphery of her right eye before she falls flat to the earth, rolling over, she traps her assailant's feet as she does so. He is much more stronger than her, but she is lithe and quick.

He also falls, backwards. Groaning.

She quickly gets up, stabbing his wrist that still holds his weapon with the block heel of her shoe, she grinds pressure into it until his grip opens, releasing his blade. Then Hannah brings his blade to his throat.

His cool grey eyes she knows are so much like her own stare up at her.

"I win", she grins, because it has been a few moments and he hasn't acknowledged it.

But he doesn't look impressed.

"You took too long to react", he scolds pushing himself up, but is stopped by his blade digging into his throat. "Hannah", he warns.

"I knew it was you. The sounds were too clumsy and loud for anything else"

"I could have been a bear"

Hannah's grin widens, "admit I won, Haymitch!" she squeals in delight, resting her head on her father's forehead.

"This is not a game, Hannah", her father despairs. "Tomorrow-"

"- I know, Papa, but I'm ready". She first learnt that word when she was six, and has since learnt how easily he gives in when she addresses him with that term. "Please Papa", she makes fish faces at him. "I win".

"OK Shorty. You win". She likes it when he calls her by that term. It is warming and reminds her of how it used to be, before the cool, distant shell her father is now.

Hannah glees, dropping the blade and giving his neck the best hug she can from that angle. She buries her nose in his short black curls to inhale the scent she finds so comforting. They are soft, like a pillow, and she rests her head on it. "I wish I had black hair like yours", moving a hand to play her fingers through them. Hardly any Victor's have blonde hair - none the paleness of hers. Inwardly, she worries quite frequently it is a bad omen.

"Yeah, well ... I wish you didn't have that colour either...". He obviously worries the same she concedes.

"I will win for you, Papa", hugging him tightly again, assuring him. "I'll tear their throats out with my teeth, just like Enorbia. I'll axe their limbs off like Johanna. Spear their hearts like Finnick - I was named after Johanna, wasn't I Papa?" She knows this of course, but still likes hearing it. She is her favourite victor after Enorbia - and her Papa of course.

"Yep".

"I will win and then we will always be together".

~xXx~

In the secluded wooden cabin that evening, whilst combing the days knots out of her hair, Hannah stares up at the still perfectly intact poster her father brought with him when she first moved in. Then, aged seven, she had felt cold, secluded and scared in her new dwellings away from the cluttered comfort of Sae's cramped shack. Her father had left her there and she cried out into the night for him, running into the chilled darkness, only to be frightened back into the four wall enclosure; curling up tight in a ball in the corner, she threw a blanket over her eyes and cried silent tears until her father returned before the sun rose the next day. She was little and weak then. It was homey now, and she had grown accustomed to all the sounds and strange shapes the woods made at night.

The woman in the picture had eyes like the sky at midday. Her hair puffy like a cloud but the colour of rabbit flesh. Lips the colour of fresh blood, and skin like snow. Euphemia Coin.

She was the most ridiculous thing, Hannah, had ever seen! For one, she had no eyebrows! She was dressed almost like a peacekeeper with her high buttoned up shirt, but her skirt stuck to her skin so tightly, that it couldn't have been easy to move. Not to mention the height and pointiness of her shoes. How easy she would be to unbalance. Her face and whole attire neither camouflaged her well or made her a worthy assailant for even a fly!

That said, with each stroke of the comb through her hair, the words her father told her five years ago and so often reminded her of was going around like a loop in her head:

'She may look harmless Hannah, but she is an angel of death. She will come for you, to bring you to your death. Take you away from District 12, me and Sae. And if you survive, she will kill you herself. You cannot trust her'.

Reaping day of her twelfth year was tomorrow. And if her father was right, the Angel of Death would be coming for her tomorrow.

~xXx~

Sunday 28th June - Reaping Day
District 12

Hannah had weaved through the streets of the village while everyone else had been asleep.

'Stay hidden. Stay in the woods. Do not come out until I tell you'.

She had poked her head through one of the windows of her father's large house before the sun rose to watch him. He was laid out on the table, surrounded by drink. She had tried the contents of one of the bottles before and quickly decided she didn't like how light headed or sick it made her. She thought she would see the woman with the long dark plait with him, but she wasn't. She lives in one of the other houses with an older woman and a girl that Hannah could easily kill if need be. But she had also seen the woman with the dark plait shoot arrows in the wood and decided it best to steer clear. She and the blonde man that only had one leg moved in last year into two separate houses. She had sized him up to, and despite his strength, was sure she could kill him too if need be. She had asked her father about them, naturally. Most importantly, why there were two, when the Games only allowed one Victor. But he said that it wouldn't do her any good knowing. They were both soft, he had said, and had only one the games by 'sheer darn luck', so there was no usefulness in watching their games.

The Games also brought people from outside of District 12; more peacekeepers, Capitols. Excluding this past year, the fence would only be electrified a few weeks before the Games until a Victor was crowned, but Hannah and her father had learnt to combat that a long time ago.

'Stay hidden. Stay in the woods. Do not come out until I tell you'.

Hannah skipped down the pebbled streets, kicking the loose stones before climbing up the drain pipe of one of the buildings looking over the Square, so she could have a better look when the show began.

Hannah was secret you see. There was a stone with her name on it in the graveyard near the Seam:

'Hannah Sae Hardy'

'Died age 7 and one month'

'Pneumonia'

But Hannah had been a secret in one way or another all her life, she figured she was excellent at it. It would be her first live Reaping, and as long as she stayed out of sight ...

~xXx~

It felt like forever for Hannah for the sun to rise for the Reaping of the 75th Hunger Games. The third Quarter Quell. For the people of the village to finish filtering into the Square - just like the videos! All the other children were scrubbed and dressed in their best clothes, hair neatly wet and combed and tied back. Hannah ran a hand through her hair she had tried her best at weaving. Looked at the shoes she had scrubbed clean in the lake. She didn't have a dress or skirt but had taken one from one of the villager's clothing line a few weeks ago. She had eyes one that must have belonged to the girl at Victors Village, but had feared the woman's arrow.

She's already spotted the girl, with her long blonde hair in weave. The woman with the dark long plait, didn't have hers weaved but down, and was sitting next to the man with one leg, holding hands and looking at each other like they were ... together. But Hannah was fairly certain the woman belonged to the man with the dark curly hair and grey eyes, like Papa.

Sae was standing in the crowd too.

Enorbia was sitting on the stage next to Papa, although Hannah was too far to see her pointed teeth, and the screens - much to her annoyance - only showed the Bread Man and the Hunting Woman. Hannah was also disappointed Finnick and Johanna had decided not to bring their axe or trident. Next to Finnick was the crazy red head woman that lived with him and was always crying. She was soft too. Her Papa was at the top, he looked funny in the clothes they had put him in ... but still, Victor of the second Quarter Quell. She would make sure she was Victor of the third.

The crowd fell even more silent and suddenly a shrill voice echoed loudly through Hannah's ear drums, she actually almost fell from where she was perched it shocked her so much. The silence was for the person addressing the crowd.

Euphemia Coin.

Hair fluffy like a yellow cloud this time, one of the screens projected her face and dress. Hannah had been wrong about this woman not being a worthy component for a fly, as there were what must be thousands of Danaus plexippus, more commonly known as Monarch Butterflies, covering her body, her face and her hair.

Euphemia Coin spoke, but Hannah wasn't listening to a word she was saying. It was the first time she had seen the Angel of Death in person, and she was taking in everything of her. She did vaguely wonder what her father thought to this woman and what she was wearing. But he was too far for her naked eye, and the Angel of Death blocked him on the screen. But when she eventually moved, Hannah could see her father's eyes boring death into the woman, as if he wanted to strike her dead then and there.

Don't worry Papa, I will do it for you. I will win the games and then nothing will keep us apart.

But Hannah barely had time to react to the fact her father had Danaus plexippus on his outfit too, when she heard the pained whisper of her name - or atleast what sounded very much like her real name - the first and last for sure.

'Hannah Euphemia Trinket Abernathy'

And suddenly she was no longer a secret as the screen now projected her face from where she was supposedly hiding.

Loud audible gasps filled the Square, no longer silent. The other screen stayed on Euphemia Coin and her father; they were looking desperately at each other, their eyes shining with tears threatening to fall. And before Hannah had a chance to get around that. She heard footsteps, quick, heavy and loud - peacekeepers.

She needed to find a better hiding place now.

She spared one more like at the screen. Both her father and Euphemia Coin's faces glared up at her with pure anger.

'Stay hidden. Stay in the woods. Do NOT come out until I tell you'.

Those were the words her father had told her continuously since he returned from the Games last year. That he had come to the woods yesterday to remind her to obey. But ... but ... she was the best at being secret ... she thought she had been the best at being secret ... But from her father's face she knew she was in seriously big trouble with him. She wouldn't become the third Quarter Quell Victor. She was certain her father would kill her first.

Uploaded: 19/6/16

AN: Nice father's day upload - jaja. Plan this to be a multi fic, not too many chapters - maybe five in total. The plan is to make it one of many fics to come based on the moves and counter moves of Effie and Pres Snow, and her keeping Victors' children from him, but we'll see. This particular one is based on the HG of course, but also has aspects of Hana - the film, and Lord of the Flies.

Just for this fic because I know it is going to be questioned: Haymitch (50th), Enorbia (51st), Finnick (62nd) and Johanna (63rd), Annie (64th or 66th ish), K and P (74th) are all Victors from District 12. Mags is actually the old escort of D12 and is used as an example to other escorts because she had a baby with a D4 victor or person and her child was sent to the HG and killed. It will be mainly Effie, Haymitch, Hannah and the other tribute for the first few chapters, but then Mags and the rest should be appearing in the later chapters.

Rated M. I don't know how much it will evolve to an M - but I like to have the rating just to be safe :)

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your views. Until next update!