The Dark and the Light
"Is the tape ready?"
"Yes, sir. The President has an interesting selection this session."
"How so?"
"I believe they're some of this prisoner's fondest memories."
"I see. Now, do officers have clearance to this group?"
"I'm not sure, sir. I could ask Lucius, if you like."
"Oh, no, no; that won't be necessary."
"Very well then. Shall we begin?"
There's a sharp stab of pain in his arm, an image flickering to life in front of him, and he is pulled under into the delusion.
Peeta is six years old, in the back of the bakery. His father laughs about the ashy blonde hair that falls into his son's eyes; his mother is no where to be found. There's shouting from outside, his brothers, certainly. Rough players, they are.
Today is Saturday, and it's his favorite day. He doesn't have to go to school (but he misses the chance of seeing her), and he gets to help ice all the cookies and cakes. But he has to be done before one, because his mother's invited Delly over. A "play date", she called it. And Peeta's not like some of his silly little friends at school; he knows what the word date means, his brothers say it all the time. He knows he's supposed to like Delly, or maybe Madge, one of the pretty, wealthy town girls with the light hair and eyes of the "better half of the district".
The flowers around the edge of this cake are called primroses, his father tells him.
A leap of something, something, rises within him. Recognition. He's heard that before—prim-primrose. Katniss. Primrose. He doesn't tell his father, but he smiles even more now, and puts more effort into every little flower.
The bell to the front door of the bakery opens only slightly, he knows because the bell only gives a weak ding. Not like when the people of town come in, throwing the door open and strolling up to the counter. He peeks around the corner. It looks like it's someone from town. Blonde hair messily pulled back, wearing a light blue blouse that matches the woman's eyes. Holding her hand is a small girl with her black hair in a braid that contrasts her yellow dress. The girl's name is Katniss Everdeen.
His father steps out and greets them warmly, but something in his voice is different than usual.
Peeta is just retreating from the corner – no, he's not going to be that low, staring at her like that, she'd think he was no better than the Seam trash his mother was always talking about – when there's an explosion. The roof of the bakery blows off, into thousands of bits of wood, and he sees stars overhead. Stars? It's afternoon. Something else, electric perhaps, implodes on them with a deafening boom.
The world catches fire, everything he has ever known burns around him. He can't think to scream or to run, his family is now inside, falling from the smoke. It's hot and the air is thick, he can't breathe it in, he feels as if his skin is slowly being peeled off, inch by inch. The cake in front of him melts away, the little iced primroses lost.
He feels inexplicably angry. Not at anything at all, no this isn't logical. The cake, the icing, the flowers, they were important, he feels. Everything else begins to fade from his vision, until she approaches him.
Katniss looks older now, easily eligible for the Reaping. And she is scowling at him, and saying, "If we burn, you burn with us."
It is her fault. It is her fault. It. Is. Her. Fault.
"Initiating transition sequence—now."
"… What's happening? Why has the venom run out?"
"Out of venom, sir? I daresay that's impossible, it can't be! What is he being shown without it?"
"NO, no, disconnect him, this is counter-productive!"
"Sir, what is it?"
"A real memory."
Peeta is sixteen years old, in the Training Center gymnasium. He looks around, and there are the Careers, experimenting with weapons. The girl from Five, one he thinks he's heard Katniss call "Foxface", working with edible plants. The boy with the limp from District Ten is at knot tying. Thresh practices combat with an instructor. And the little angel of a girl from Eleven is just one station behind them.
In front of him, endless dyes, the type he's always been interested in, always wanted to try, like paint, maybe. The natural ones, as well, yet maybe he doesn't want that reminder, the harsh reality of the arena.
But he can't stand to look at any of those for too long. Katniss Everdeen is under a foot away from him, and he hasn't been focusing all day. He tunes out the instructor's praise, and soon he leaves, going to check on the girl from Eight, and Peeta says, "I do the cakes," hoping it'll make her feel better, since the instructor had barely paid her any attention at all.
"The cakes? What cakes?"
He sighs a bit inside at her confusion. Of course, she's never had the money for such things. How naïve is he to think she ever noticed? "At home. The iced ones, for the bakery," he tries carefully.
"It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death."
He stops, and wonders if she's kidding. She doesn't strike him as the kidding type.
"Don't be so superior." He tries to make light of it. "You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake—" When she interrupts him, he's not quite sure what to make of it. But he likes that she's talking to him at all. Even if at the end of the week, they could both be dead, he feels light, and airy, and maybe that's ridiculous.
"The drip's been refilled, sir."
"It'd better be. We're both done for if that had a major effect."
"Do you know how much it could've had?"
"No way to know, is there?"
Peeta is sixteen years old, and dying in a mud bank. He's not always so aware of it. He remembers waking to a huge buzz, a cloud, a swarm of tracker-jackers descending on him. Katniss dropped the nest. Katniss wanted to hurt him. Katniss wanted to kill him.
It is announced that two tributes can win. He wakes at the beginning of the announcement, smiles as much as his camouflage could allow, and whispers her name. He feels more as if he is watching this. Why is he so happy at the prospect of seeing her? She is making a fool out of him.
"I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off." The words sound cold to his ears.
"Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying." He hopes the words are an apology, they will keep him safe, they will keep him away from her, just far enough, out of reach.
He sees her frown deeply at him. Then she's taking nearby weeds and rocks, mud and clay and layering it over him. He tries to speak, to ask what she's doing, to stop her, but no words come out. There's a knife in her other hand now, alongside his own tongue, blood-covered and all slimy and—
He's almost sick, but can't be.
He is an Avox left at her mercy, at the Capitol's—no, hers. The rebels. Thirteen. Katniss.
The mud is too thick now, he can't see or hear her. All he can feel is the solid pounds that separate him from reality, maybe safety. When he inhales, there is not enough air. There is not enough air.
In his panic, his breaths grow more and more shallow until there are none at all. The last scrap of oxygen left him, alongside the last hint of life in his eyes.
"That concludes this session."
"I thought the President said a double-run?"
"Oh. Yes, sir, that's right. Especially with the mishap—"
"Keep your mouth shut, don't go advertising it!"
"Sorry, sir. Back to the beginning."
A tape rewinds, venom flows into his bloodstream, and he feels it start again.
;;;;
Peeta is forty years old, and in his kitchen. His daughter sits at the table, eagerly watching him put in the next batch of cookies, asking how long they take to bake, how much sugar did he put in, can she help frost them this time…? Yes, definitely his child.
He hears Katniss singing in the adjoining room, a sweet lullaby to their son. It rings of familiarity, but he doesn't know if it's one of the nightmares or delusions, or reality.
"Deep in the meadow, under the willow…"
District Eleven. Flowers. Mockingjays. Music. Family. Survival. Prim? No. Rue, he remembers.
He makes an excuse to his daughter to leave after setting the timer, and goes to her. Quietly, as their son is now asleep, he asks, "You sang that song in the Games. Real or not real?" He can't read her expression for a moment afterwards, it isn't anger, isn't confusion, isn't quite anything.
"Real," she says finally.
A bit later, he does let their daughter help him frost the cookies. Some of them are in the shape of primroses, because the kids like those, for some reason. He tries to not let Katniss see them. The other ones, he only realizes now, are rue flowers. And his daughter ices them in yellow and white and violet. Rue's flowers. Her memorial, her own tribute.
One day, he thinks, he'll tell them the real reason why they can't have those cookies in front of their mother.