So, I decided to trust my limited knowledge of English grammar and to upload the story here, too. It's the first thing I upload, so, please... be gentle with me *blushes and looks away* Jk, jk! I accept any kind of comment ;)
I did the editing myself, so every mistake it's mine.
The banner was made by my RL best friend, ZAK-ID! She is incredibly talented, trust me on word!
I've got a Tumblr (littleevilisa), so come talk to me if you feel like it :D
I own nothing.
TO WINTER HEIGHTS
The muddy path under their feet was slowing them. It had been for the great part of their journey. They were tired, partially wounded, some of them were dead. And after a fortnight spent in the darkness of the Forest of the Damned, the Company was starting to fear they would have never seen spring ever again. Or the light of day, for that matter. The only silver lining was that at least the thick foliage of the dark, huge trees created a cover that prevented the snow from settling on the forest floor. It was so thick, though, that even light could barely penetrate it.
When King Haymitch of the Meadow Kingdom had summoned them at his palace, they would have never thought that things would have been like this. It hadn't been so strange to think differently. Honestly, what man in his right mind would ask to a group formed by people so different from each other to march towards Winter Heights to stop the spell that almost a year ago had turned the land in a never-ending cloak of snow and ice?
But there they were, on their way to slain the Snow Warlock and bring spring back for all the inhabitants of the cursed realm.
They had lost so much on their journey. Finnick the Charmer, the half-elf half-druid from the Green Oceans of West, was the first of them to perish. Shredded to pieces by the giant white lizards in the Voiceless Swamp. Annie Green Eyed, the water nymph his betrothed, had quickly followed him, smothered by grief. Even Gale of the Southern Mines had left them. The pugnacious but honourable half-orc was taken by the Snow Warlock's guards right outside the Forest of the Damned. He sacrificed himself so that the remnant of the Company of the new Spring – as King Haymitch has named the group – could have gone on and accomplished their mission.
The journey was now obviously taking its tool on the Company. Prim of the Citadel, the young white priestess with the task of heal her comrades, was almost completely worn out, as her healing spells were increasingly less strong. They had only one healing potion, and they were determined to let it last until the very end. Prim's tiredness had repercussion on the others, though.
Johanna Goldfinger was the most difficult to deal with. The halfling thief had a fire in her that could have been easily awoken, but not as much easily squashed. Added it to the wounds she had suffered in their wandering through the Plains of the Eternal Storm, when a thunder had struck her and she had barely survived, and it was easy to understand why she would consistently snap at the others.
They had been walking for hours no-stop, their feet stucking in the mud, when suddenly Prim stumbled on an unseen root and tumbled to the floor with a little, exhausted yelp.
Katniss Songbird was immediately at her side. "Are you okay?" she asked the young girl.
Prim smiled weakly at the elf ranger, and let Katniss help her to her feet. The two girls had easily bonded during their journey. Being Prim so young and good, Katniss had immediately felt this need to protect the human girl, a love that could only be described as that of a sister for a younger sibling.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" snapped Johanna, waving her arms around like a mad woman. "Can't we just leave her behind?"
"Johanna!" Katniss admonished her.
"She's not helping us at all! She's just slowing us down!" countered the halfling. Prim flinched, still in Katniss' arms.
"Shut up, Johanna, or I'll stuck an arrow through your eye!" Katniss hissed.
Johanna's barks of laughter resounded through the forest. "I'd like to see that!"
Katniss was about to let Prim go and to charge against Johanna, the weariness of the journey only fuelling her ire, when Peeta stepped between them and definitely stopped the fight.
"Please, guys, stop." he said in his steady, strong baritone. "Fighting against each other won't help us get out of here. Keep your strength up for when we'll be at Winter Heights."
Katniss and Johanna glared at each other from around Peeta broad figure, but eventually grunted and let it go.
"I'll climb and try to see where we are exactly." Johanna said while approaching a tree. She used her daggers as pickets and rapidly disappeared through the branches.
With a deep sigh, Peeta turned towards Katniss and Prim, who had now moved towards a mossy rock so that Prim could sit. The priestess winced every step she took.
"I probably have a sprained ankle." she said, sitting and grimacing.
"Do you think you can heal it?" Katniss asked her.
Prim shook her head. "I could, but I don't feel like wasting my energy for a minor injury. I'll be okay with a regular bandage."
Silently, Katniss helped Prim putting her ankle in a rudimentary splint, as Johanna reappeared, swinging upside down on a branch. The excited expression on her face didn't go unnoticed by her comrades.
"We are almost out!" the halfling exclaimed excitedly. "I think two more hours of marching." She easily dropped herself from the branch and landed on her feet.
Katniss helped Prim up, and put her arm around her to help the priestess walk.
It took only a few step for Katniss to struggle to keep Prim's body up. The two girls were the same height, but Katniss' strength wasn't enough, especially after everything they had gone through. They stumbled and almost fell, if not for Peeta grabbing Katniss' arm.
"Let me carry her." Peeta said to Katniss, already removing the elf's arm from around the younger girl's waist.
Katniss tried to protest. "I can do it."
"No, you can't." Peeta simply stated, lifting Prim in his arms effortlessly.
"But your leg is injured, too!" Katniss said, tugging at the stupid, once white cape that he had to wear with his armour.
"My leg is fine." he answered and resumed walking, effectively ending their discussion.
Katniss glared at his retreating back. The Mighty Knight of Light could be really unnerving sometimes. He always had to be the gentleman, always the pacifier. Despite being a knight, he believed that words – especially if said in a calm, relaxed tone – could solve any conflict. Sometimes, his kind actions annoyed Katniss to no ends. It was like he was trying to prove that, just because she was a woman, Katniss couldn't take care of herself, or others. But now, she wouldn't have complained. She wasn't sure she could support Prim for two hours. So, having a man that could carry weights around was not so bad.
Katniss was a little bit concerned about him, though. He had been wounded in the Voiceless Swamp, while trying to keep the monstrous lizards at bay. One of the horrendous creatures had jumped him, knocking him on his back. Katniss managed to get rid of it with a couple of well placed arrows, but not before the lizard could strike Peeta's upper thigh with its claws. The tremendous wound had been affecting him for days. Luckily, Prim's healing spells had still been strong at that point, and the warrior was now barely limping.
The majority of time, the ranger was almost ashamed by her interest in the human man's wellbeing. But she couldn't deny the invisible but unbreakable thread uniting them.
They had met the first time years before, when they were merely children. She had been with her father that day. The rangers of the Everdeen Forest had been summoned by the king, and Katniss had begged her father, leader of the group, to take her with them. Once in the city, she had easily lost sight of the group, and had wandered the streets, afraid and alone, until she had just retreated in a small alley and started crying. Suddenly, she had felt a little, warm hand touch her shoulder. Her head snapped up, hoping against hope that her father had found her. Her eyes had locked with the blue ones of a human boy, instead. He had asked her if she was okay, and offered her comfort when she had said to him that she was lost. He had even given her half of the bread loaf he had been carrying with him. They had talked a little bit, telling each other their names and age, and what they were doing in the city. He had said that he was the baker's son, but that he had always wanted to become a knight. Talking with him had calmed Katniss to the point that she hadn't realized how much time had passed before her father had appeared out of nowhere, during his desperate search for his daughter.
Years had passed before they had met again. She had started her training as a ranger, and had been wandering through the forest for her daily hunting trip. She had been about to kill a buck when she had heard the noise of wild dogs, nearer than she had liked. But when she had been about to leave, she had heard a voice screaming at the beasts. Against her better judgement, Katniss had sprinted towards the sound, and she had found a blond young man fighting three wild dogs with a sword. Rapidly, she had shoot an arrow against one of the animals, piercing its skull and killing it instantly. The other two dogs had retreated immediately. The young man had turned towards her to thank her for saving his life, when he had suddenly stopped, looking at her with wide eyes. It had taken Katniss more to recognize the boy from the alley. He had been injured during the fight with the wild dogs, so Katniss had helped him to the Elves's camp so that he could receive treatments. In his brief time in the camp, he had informed her that he had been adopted by the noble man his family had been working for for years after both his parents had died in a fire. He also had said to her that he now had been training to become a knight.
In the following years, Katniss and Peeta had met each other once every year, sharing bread and stories, growing together more than the elf maiden would have liked.
Neither of them had expected the other to be summoned for this mission, and the annoyance for having kept this a secret from each other had been spoiling their bond. But there was no way that she wouldn't protect him. And she cursed herself for this.
Her train of thoughts was interrupted by what her well-trained ear interpreted like a creaking sound, followed by the swishing of the foliage.
Katniss stopped in her track. "Did you hear that?" she asked.
Johanna nodded, a perplexed expression changing her features.
After a matter of seconds, the creaking was back. Katniss pointed it out while exchanging a glance with Johanna, but the others claimed they couldn't hear anything. Of course, they couldn't. Humans. Whatever that sound was, though, it was obviously nothing good.
"Keep moving." the ranger said to her comrades as her steely eyes scanned the forest around them, an arrow notched on her bow, just to be sure.
When the sound was back, incredibly closer and stronger, there was no doubt that even the humans in the company had heard it. All their heads snapped backward, alarmed eyes fixing on the trees standing above them. What they saw wasn't necessarily scary, not more scarier than the horrendous creatures that they had fought until then, but it was terrifying in its own way. The branches above them were moving. Without a single gust of wind.
Katniss felt something slowly crawl over her left foot and around her leather boot, squeezing a little. She looked down to find a root twisted around her ankle and moving to capture her calf. "Shit!" she muttered between clenched teeth. One of Johanna's daggers cut the root and got Katniss free.
There was no denying it. The forest was moving.
"Run!" the ranger shouted, sprinting forward. The other followed her without questions. The gaps between the trunks were rapidly closing, blocking them and forcing them to change their direction more than once in mid-run. Branches and vines and roots were reaching for them from above and below, trying to capture them. The forest was closing in on them, literally.
They had to keep running as fast as they could, dodging branches and roots on their way. Who knew for how long they had been running. Katniss only knew that even her trained lungs were asking mercy, almost incapacitated to fill with oxygen, and her left side was burning as if an hot iron rod was lodged in it. Still, the adrenaline was guiding her as far as possible. Her light feet were carrying her, at the head of the group.
Suddenly, she heard the clang of Peeta's armour hitting the ground, followed by a little yelp from Prim.
Katniss turned on herself so fast that she almost slipped on the mud. But before she could go back to help them, Johanna was already on the job, cutting the roots that were blocking Peeta's legs.
"Keep running!" shouted the halfling.
Prim got weakly on her feet, and started running-wobbling as fast as she could. Katniss reached for her hand, snaked her arm around Prim's waist and half dragged, half supported her. They were infinitely slower this way, but Katniss wouldn't never have left the younger girl behind.
Peeta was free and behind them in a minute. He scooped Prim in his arms and nudged Katniss to go faster. She rapidly took the head of the group again.
She was starting to lose hope – and probably her spleen – when suddenly, she saw a beam of light right in front of her. They were almost there, almost safe. The thought of being out of the forest gave her the energy to sprint the last meters towards her freedom. Branches were reaching for her, scratching her skin and getting stuck in her long braid, but she kept running even when she passed the last wooden barrier.
Peeta stumble at her side, falling on his knees. He put Prim on the ground – finally not muddy anymore – gasping for air as if he had been drowning.
Katniss turned towards the forest just in time to see Johanna fall, roots and vines twisted around her legs and midsection. She seemed to have lost both her daggers during the run, because she was clawing at the wicked plants with her bare hands. The space through which they had exited the forest was rapidly closing, and the vines were dragging Johanna back.
The look of pure terror on her face petrified Katniss in her place.
"Johanna!" Peeta shouted. He was instantly on his feet, brandishing his sword and charging against the trees.
Before he could do anything, the trees had closed, blocking him. Peeta tried to cut around the trunks with his sword to create a passage of sort, but it was useless. Now that the forest had taken one of them, it had stilled, becoming an impenetrable wall.
The adrenaline rush wasn't enough to sustain her when reality hit Katniss. Another one of them was gone. And this time, she hadn't even done anything to stop it from happening. She first fell on her knees, then passed out.
When she came to, it was dark. She sprang up in a sitting position, afraid for a moment that they were still in the forest. Then hopeful for a moment that they were still in the forest. That would have meant that Johanna was still with them. But when she looked around her, she noticed the dark blue hue of the snow at night.
"How are you feeling?" Prim asked her, coming to sit at her side.
Katniss just nodded. She could see the sadness in the priestess' eyes. Johanna and her weren't really friends, but the halfling was one of them.
Peeta was seated a few feet away, looking intently at the fire he was stoking. He looked incredible tired.
"How long was I out?" the ranger asked.
"Five hours, more or less" Prim answered.
Katniss looked from one comrade to the other.
"Go to sleep, guys." she said. "I'll take watch, now. I'm not tired." She ended up watching all night long.
For the following days, they just marched through the snow, silent and tired. Prim's ankle was almost healed, so she could walk by herself. Another positive thing was that they were almost at Winter Heights. They would start their climb the next day.
The twin mountains stood against the heavily clouded sky, dominating over the white. They were the highest mountains in the kingdom, and in all the others, too. People said that they were the habitats of vicious creatures, like the fire mutts, wolves with the ability to breathe an almost inextinguishable fire, or the tracker jackers, wasp-like insects whose stings were so poisonous that just one could kill a man. Now, covered in snow and ice, Winter Heights looked even more dangerous.
Katniss couldn't understand how the Snow Warlock could make this place his headquarters, but it probably was because of the height itself. From up there, the Snow Warlock could keep an eye on anything that could come his way. She knew he knew they were coming. The snowstorm that had hit them on their way up and never stopped was a clear sign of it.
The climb was difficult, particularly for Peeta. His armour weighted him down considerably, making standing on the slippery rocks even more exhausting. His physical strength was helping him limitedly. Katniss gave him and Prim some of her arrows so that they could use them as poles in the more sloping sections.
Before they even knew it, it was night again. The eternal winter had shortened the light hours substantially. The wind and snow made seeing an inch from your nose almost impossible. They had to stop and wait until morning.
They were lucky enough to stumble on a cave on the side of the second mountain, the one that King Haymitch had told them was the hiding of the Snow Warlock. It wasn't exactly a cave, more like the mouth of a tunnel dug in the rock.
Katniss wasn't really sure that it was a good idea to stop there, but the snow outside didn't give them any choice. She would have to be vigil all through the night to make sure nothing would have come at them while they were sleeping.
And that's exactly what she did. She watched all night long, her bow ready in her hand, just in case. At some point, Peeta woke up. They silently waited out the night together.
At the first signs of dawn – a barely there light through the raging storm – they decided it was time to see where the tunnel led to. They sacrificed one of Katniss' arrow to make a torch of sort and marched into the mountain.
Katniss would have liked to be grateful for being out of the storm, but she couldn't shake that certain sense of uneasiness that permeated her every waking hour. It was probably because they were now so close to the end of their mission. But not quite that, she reasoned.
It wasn't long before they found themselves at a trivium. Every tunnel was as dark as the other, with no indication of its length or where it led.
"Which way?" Peeta asked.
Instinctively, Katniss decided to take the tunnel at her left. But before they went, she told Peeta to draw a cross with his sword in the rock. "For future reference." she explained.
It turned out to be a good idea. The more they moved into the mountain, the more crossroads they came across. It looked like those tunnels went on for all eternity, too. They twisted and ascended and descended, with no indication of the actual direction the remnants of the Company of the new Spring were going to.
They had been walking for hours and had came across another trivium, when Katniss noticed something. A sign on the wall. A cross. It took her only a second to understand. "It's a maze." she muttered. She knew there was something suspicious about this place.
"What?" Prim asked her.
"It's a maze." the ranger repeated, pointing to the cross. "We've been walking in circles."
"Which crossroad is this?" Peeta pondered out loud.
"There's no way to know."
"What are we going to do, now?" The raising panic in Prim's voice was clear.
Katniss and Peeta exchanged a worried look. What to do? They could have gone back from where they had come, following again the marked tunnel, or go the other way. They couldn't know where that way led, but, if they were lucky, it could have been the exit.
Peeta seemed to follow the same line of reasoning as Katniss, as the knight suggested to take the unmarked tunnel.
As he said so, however, the mountain started to shake. This was completely unexpected. There were no records whatsoever of earthquakes in the kingdom, nor in this specific region. Katniss stumbled against the wall, trying to avoid the rocks that were now falling from the ceiling of the tunnel, and praying that the rocks under their feet wouldn't do the same. She covered her eyes with her arms to protect them from the dust falling with the rocks.
The earthquake didn't last more than two minutes, but it was enough. When Katniss reopened her eyes, a new, solid wall of rocks was in front of her. Panicked, she looked around her in search of her comrades. Prim was sitting with her back against the marked wall, face ashen, but Peeta was nowhere to been seen. Well, his stupid, once white cloak she could see. A corner of it stuck out from under the rocks.
The ranger sprang towards the new wall and started clawing at the rocks to remove them. "Peeta!" she called his name in panic. "Peeta!"
When no answer arrived, she doubled her efforts, her nails breaking and bleeding against the rocks, while a thick veil of tears covered her eyes. He wasn't dead. There was no way he was dead. She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't.
"Katniss..."
She froze. That was his voice.
"Peeta?" she whispered, only to repeat herself louder when she heard his muffled groan from the other side of the wall. "Are you okay, Peeta?" she asked the knight.
"Yes, don't worry about me. You girls?"
"We are fine. I'll get you out." She immediately went to the job, but Peeta's voice stopped her.
"Wait, Katniss. Where are you?" he asked.
"We are in the marked tunnel."
"I've got the other two. Okay." She could imagine a plan was forming in the knight's mind. "Okay. You girls take the tunnel, I'll follow the one we came from. I'll find you mid-way."
Katniss tried to protest, but Peeta stopped her again.
"Katniss, please, do as I tell you. I'll find you. Always."
She reluctantly agreed. The ranger helped Prim to her feet, and together they went.
They didn't find Peeta. But it wasn't like they could find anything at all. The makeshift torch had turned off during the earthquake, and Peeta was carrying the flintlock with him. They stumbled through the dark, leaning against the wall and squinting as they tried to make their surroundings out through the faint gleam Prim's mystical rod emitted.
They didn't find Peeta. They had suddenly found themselves at yet another crossroad, but this one didn't have any visible mark.
"We are lost, aren't we?" asked Prim.
Katniss didn't answer her.
They didn't find Peeta. They walked right into the lair of a pack of fire mutts. They could see the beasts' tiny, bleary eyes fixing on them, and hear some of them hiss and growl.
"Step back. Slowly." Katniss said to Prim, moving the girl so she stood behind her.
But it was useless. Without them noticing, the beasts had surrounded them, blocking their way. Katniss rapidly counted them, and calculated how many mutts she could have take down with the arrows she had left. Not many. The only way out of there was if she killed the mutts that were between the girls and their retreat, and then run. She nocked an arrow and whispered to Prim, "When I tell you, duck." She felt the priestess nod. She inhaled. "Duck!" In the same exhale, Katniss rotated on herself and let her arrow fly. It planted itself in the eye of the nearest mutt. Without a sound, the archer took down other three beasts before she pushed Prim to her feet and intimated her to run.
The fire mutts were right on their heels, growling and barking and spitting fire. Katniss easily jumped out of the fire's way. She had always been fast, faster than any elf and any creature in the Everdeen Forest. Unfortunately, the same couldn't have been said about Prim.
Prim's cry stopped Katniss on her track and made her blood freeze in her veins. She turned just in time to see one of the mutts closing in on the priestess and spitting fire at her. "NO!" she screamed, and killed the heinous beast with her last arrow.
But it was too late. Prim's clothes had caught fire. The girl was now a living torch, screeching and running, bumping against the tunnel's walls.
The second she fell on the ground, the fire mutts retreated, and the fire turned off by itself.
Katniss was immediately on the younger girl. She was still breathing, barely. The fire had scorched her skin and burned her hair. What remained of her looked more like coal than the sweet, blonde girl who she had started this journey with.
Katniss couldn't let her die. Prim was too good, too innocent to die in such a way. To die, period. Without thinking, Katniss reached for the healing potion in her satchel, and tried to make Prim drink it. She didn't know if it would have helped at all, but that was her only chance. She wasn't a healer, she had no idea what else she could do. The priestess was unconscious, so the liquid substance slipped out of her mouth and over her charred skin. Katniss prayed that it still could be effective, somehow.
Nothing happened for minutes, until Prim took a deep breath. Her eyes flew open. She tried to say something. And then she was no more.
Katniss' eyes stayed fixed on her body for who knew how long, before she felt tears streaming down her face. She scrambled away, hitting her back against the rock wall. She screamed and cried, scratching the blood that was plastered on her hands. She brought her knees to her chest, hugging her legs, and put her head on her knees.
The mission was a failure, as well as a death sentence. All those innocent people in the company, people who had had a life and a family and a future outside the mission, now were dead. And Katniss hadn't been able to do anything to help them. Finnick and Annie. Gale. Johanna. And now sweet Prim. She had watched them die. And now she was alone, lost in a maze and most likely to die as well.
No. Peeta. It wasn't over. She wasn't dead, yet. Peeta would have found her. He promised her. She trusted him. And in the meantime, she would have looked for him, too.
She didn't know for how long she had been walking, but judging from the pain that was shooting from her feet and from the blisters she could feel explode and bleed in her boots, it had been very long.
She stopped only to eat and sleep, when hungry and exhaustion were too strong for her to fight anymore. Without Prim's mystical rod, she couldn't see almost anything. Her elf eyes could help her limitedly.
She estimated two days had passed since when they first had entered the tunnel, and she was about to lose hope – and herself – to exhaustion, slumped against the wall, when she heard a faint buzzing noise. And then what her mind recognized as Peeta's voice.
She immediately stumbled to her feet, using her long bow as a lever, and run towards the sound.
Peeta. She had found him, finally. Peeta. She knew she would have seen him again. She screamed his name through the darkness, hoping that he would have heard her.
"Katniss!"
"Peeta!" Yes, it was him! She used his voice and the other noises she could hear as a guide to get to him.
"Katniss, stay away!" he screamed. What? Why would he have said so? Was he in danger and trying to keep her safe? She decided to ignore his request. There was no way she would have left him to fight alone. Not now that she had found him.
At the end of the tunnel she could see a faint light. It was the direction Peeta's voice was coming from, so she hastened her pace.
The tunnel ended in a quite big cave. Peeta was there, waving his swords around him, trying to keep something away from him. His armour was partly destroyed, his cloak ripped, and his leg was bleeding once again from the wound he had sustained in the Voiceless Swamp. The cave's ceiling was covered by what looked like gigantic hives. They were glowing in the dark – they were the source of the light Katniss had see, so – and buzzing in rage. They were right in the middle on the biggest tracker jackers' nest.
"Katniss! I told you to stay away!" Peeta told her when he noticed her.
"Nonsense." she said, a newly found resolution in her. "Give me your flintlock."
He looked quizzically at her for a second, then he rummaged in his satchel to find the flintlock. When it was in his hand, he threw it at Katniss.
The ranger caught it in mid-air. Without hesitation, she set fire to her last arrow, the one that she had retrieved from the dead mutt that had killed Prim before she had left the younger girl's side. She shoot the arrow at the central hive in the ceiling. The fire spread immediately to all the surrounding hives. The tracker jackers were preoccupied enough so that Katniss and Peeta could run away.
They only stopped when they couldn't hear the cracking of the burning hives nor the buzzing of the insects anymore. Slumped against the wall, his breath short, Peeta smiled at her and Katniss couldn't help but smile back at him.
He looked around them, a sudden frown grazing his face. "Where's Prim?" he asked.
Katniss' smile died instantly, and she looked away. "Fire mutts." was all she said.
Peeta slowly approached her and without a word enveloped her in his strong arms. She melted against him, bringing her arms around his waist. She let a shaking sigh, willing herself not to cry again, and he only squeezed her tighter.
"Let's get out of here." he whispered in her ear. "I found the way when I was looking for you."
Katniss leaned back to look at him. "Which way?" she asked him.
Peeta took her hand and gestured with his head to his left.
The road wasn't long. Katniss could feel the crispy air of winter and the cold wind coming their way. Katniss squeezed Peeta's hand in excitement, when she felt something strange under her thumb. Peeta winced.
The ranger brought their joined hands in front of her, ignoring the human's plea not to look, not to worry because he was okay. But he wasn't. Two angry red stings had made the back of Peeta's hand swell. Black marks were stretching from the stings under the lower cannon of his armour.
"What are these?" she asked, her voice breaking at the last word.
"Nothing, Katniss. Don't worry." Peeta dismissed it, and tried to pry his hand away from hers. But Katniss' hold was surprisingly strong. She took it as a sign that the venom had already weakened him.
"Let me take you out of here." she said.
They didn't talk anymore.
Once their feet touched the snow, Peeta crumbled at the ground. Katniss helped him to a seated position. "I'm sorry." he told her.
Katniss shushed him. She didn't want him to apologize for something that wasn't in his power to control. Nevertheless, Katniss was angry at him. And at herself. There was another person of the Company that was almost gone, and that she couldn't help. What was worst was that this person was Peeta. Peeta, the sweet boy that had cheered her the day she has lost her father in the city, the boy that she had saved from the wild dogs, the man that she had known for years and that she had come to consider a friend, and probably not just that.
She hastily wiped at her eyes when a tear escaped her lashes and streamed down her cheek.
"Don't cry." Peeta pleaded, bringing up his hand and cupping her jaw. She leaned in his touch, forgoing her fight against the tears. They were silent and warm against her icy skin. "I'm sorry." he repeated.
Katniss shook her head. "No, I am sorry." she sniffed. "I can't save you. I–"
Peeta interrupted her. "No, Katniss. I'm sorry that I can't help you anymore. I should had been more careful. I'm sorry that I'm leaving you alone to finish this."
She caressed his hand on her jaw. She didn't liked him so distant from her. She made him lay on the ground, his head on her lap. That was better.
He smiled softly at her. "You can do it, you know? You can defeat the Snow Warlock and bring spring back. I know you can. I trust you."
She shushed him again. His breath was shallow and difficult, and Katniss could see the black marks peeking from under his breastplate, creeping up his neck. It was almost over. Helpless sobs started wrecking her body, and she bit her bottom lip to the point of bleeding.
Peeta's blue eyes focused on her, clouded and glassy. "Katniss, I have to tell you this, before it's too late." he whispered, rubbing his thumb against her chin until she released her bottom lip. "I love you. I've loved you since the first time I laid my eyes on you. I was looking for you that day in the forest. I'm so happy that I got to know you, these years." She felt warmth spread from the center of her body to all her extremities, and her heart seized in her chest as she trembled, more from Peeta's revelation than the cold. "I'm so happy I can die in your arms." He smiled sheepishly.
Gazing deeply in his eyes, Katniss felt something in her shatter. The wall she had built around her heart was crumbling down as Peeta's words had given it the final blow, finishing a work that he had started years before in an alley. She knew that it would have happened one day, but definitely not in this way. Not just before she was about to lose him forever. But that was all they would have got, so she wanted it to be enough for him.
"I love you, too." she whispered as she touched his face, caressing it with both her fingers and eyes.
His eyes widened in surprise before a breathtaking smile – even in his weakened state – illuminated his face. "Come here, then."
Katniss leaned forward and sealed their lips with a kiss. It was a sweet kiss, but filled with love and longing nonetheless. That was the only one they would have had, so it had to be that way.
Katniss broke the kiss only when Peeta's lips stopped moving.
His face was paler than usual, but still very handsome. She caressed his eyelids, his cheeks, marvelling at the smoothness. She grazed his slightly chapped lips with her own once again.
She cradled his head in her arms and held him against her chest, not ready to let him go, yet. She probably would have never been. Katniss felt that warmth that she had come to connect with Peeta leaving his body rapidly, and hers as well. His light was gone, her light. There was no hope anymore. Only void and numbness.
"That was really moving."
She startled when she heard the voice through the icy wind. She thought for a moment that that voice was the wind itself, mocking her in her pain.
As she looked up from Peeta's face, she could see a figure standing a few feet away from them. Squinting her eyes, she saw that it was an old man, with a white beard and white hair, imposing over them. The snake-like smile on his puffy lips sent a shiver running down her spine.
"You know who I am?" the man asked.
There was no way Katniss could had mistaken his identity. Everything in him screamed evil and cold. "The Snow Warlock." she whispered.
He smiled again. "I have to say it, you were really easy to deal with." Katniss frowned at him, confused. "You died all by your hand on your way here. At least, the other company the king had sent arrived here in its entirety. They died nonetheless, but it still was better than what you have done."
The other company? There hadn't been another...
It suddenly dawned on Katniss. It was a suicide mission. No one expected them to come back. That's why the king had forbidden them to talk about the mission with anyone. That's why the king had summoned them only after almost a years since the curse had been cast. That's why she didn't knew about the other company. The king knew, and still he had sent them to die. And now they were dead. Peeta was dead.
With ice in her veins, she felt a new need growing in her. Something that she had never felt before, but that now was rapidly consuming everything that she was. It was dark and strong and scary. Vengeance. Against the king, for sending them to their death without a single concern. Against the warlock, for casting the spell that had led to the mission. Vengeance. And it was beautiful and powerful compared to the numbness.
Discarding her long bow and her now empty quiver, Katniss drew Peeta's sword from its sheath. She wasn't trained in sword fighting, but that was the only weapon she had at hand at the moment. Plus, she was about to die. It didn't matter what she would use to delay her end.
She stood on wobbly legs. The sword was heavier that she had thought, and she had to hold it in both her hands to raise it in front of her.
With a strangled cry, lost in the wind, Katniss charged the Snow Warlock. He easily stepped out of the sword's trajectory. Katniss drew the sword back and tried a lunge. Once again, he simply stepped away.
Frustration was taking the best of her as the old man dodged every attacks without even breaking a light sweat. She was panting and crying and sweating. It wasn't right. Why wouldn't he let her hit him, just once?
She raised the sword over her head, when she felt it slip out of her grip. With a flick of his wrist, the Snow Warlock had sent the sword hurling down the mountain.
The old man wrapped his icy hands around Katniss' neck, raising her from the ground without any effort. She struggled against his surprisingly strong hold, clawing at his hands with her battered ones. The air stopped its journey down her pipes, her lungs burned, asking mercy. Katniss started to see black dots in her peripheral view before she was even able to do something.
On the brink of unconsciousness, she somehow thought that the Snow Warlock was sparing her when he let her go. Her lungs ached when they filled up with air once again. The pain in her throat was almost unbearable.
"You were the worst choice the king could make." the old man said.
Katniss looked up in the exact moment a powerful gust of wind was directed her way. It caught her off guard, sending her backwards until she was crouching on the ground with the mountain's edge right behind her. Under it, only the valley.
She fought with all her strength against the wind. Mostly because she had to. Peeta had had faith in her to complete the mission, to bring spring back. But then she thought about how the king had deceived all of them, making them think that they could do something that not even his first choice as a company could accomplish.
So, really, what was the point in fighting? Why keep doing it, when there was no chance that Katniss' spring could come back to her?
So, with a deep sigh, she let go.
As she fell from the mountain, she couldn't help but think that she would have soon seen Peeta again, that now they could be together, and that damn it she should had trained more and get that fucking giant pet eagle.
Silence reigns in the living room as we all look at Rory, varying grades of confusion on our faces.
"So, that's it?" Johanna asks sitting straighter on the carpet.
"Yep, that's it." confirms Rory as he brings his beer's bottle at his lips, rolling his D20s in his hand, characters sheets and guides spread around him on the floor. "But you did good for your first time."
"But we didn't kill the Snow Warlock!" Finnick protests from his perch on the armchair, Annie seated in his lap.
"What can I say, not all the parties are successful."
"Bullshit." I mumble, glaring at my sister's fiancé.
"You shouldn't talk, Kat." he says, pointing his finger at me. "You could have probably win if you had used the healing potion on Peeta instead of wasting it earlier on Prim."
"Hey!" Prim shouts indignantly, swatting him on his arm.
"Sorry, babe. But, let's face it: it was a pretty dumb move." he defends himself.
"Your face is a pretty dumb move." she says menacingly.
"I honestly still don't understand why you made me an orc." Gale grumbles, crossing his arms in front of him.
"Oh, c'mon, bro!" Rory exclaims, exasperated with his older brother. "Tall, dark and broody. That's exactly you!"
"If you think that I won't punch you just because you're almost a married man, you're wrong."
Everyone in the room except Gale and Rory cackles at this. It's always hilarious to watch the banters between the two older Hawthorne brothers, especially if like me you grew up with them.
"Well, it was fun, wasn't it?" says Annie with one of her sweet smiles.
"You left the party the moment Finn died." Peeta's voice is muffled by the rim of his glass of ice tea. He is the one driving, tonight.
"Well, it still was fun looking at you guys play." she replies. I think that she would have fun even listening to a concert of out-of-tune cats, nowadays. I know that she loves little Finn with all her heart, but there is a limited number of things that one could do with a five-month-old baby.
"Well, I am proud of my archer." Peeta says, snaking his arm around my waist. "You kept your integrity 'til the end. You were so in character that I could almost see the elf here, tonight."
I playfully roll my eyes at him. This is definitely something that my husband would say. It seems that his life's mission is to always make me shine. Sometimes I like it. And I'm probably the only one who does.
"Oh, shut it, Lover Boy!" Johanna groans. "And what the hell was that lame speech at the end?"
"Hey, that wasn't lame at all!" he protests. "Those were the last words of a dying man to the woman he loved. They were romantic and inspiring."
I pat his chest lovingly. "They were kinda lame, Peeta."
He looks at me with mock hurt on his face. Then his cheeky grin, the one that I love so much, makes his appearance. "Oh, but you love it when I am lame." he whispers leaning against me. He hold me a little bit closer as his lips leave sweet, short kisses on my neck. Goosebumps form in the wake of his mouth. I have to bite my bottom lip to stifle a moan. After all those years together, it's undeniable the effect Peeta has on me. Even these little, innocent caresses of his lips awake the desire in me, leaving me craving for more. The moisture that I feel spreading in my underwear it's a clear indication of it.
I somehow remember that we are not in the peace of our bedroom, and that our friends and family are watching us. And I never was a fan of PDA. "Not in front of everyone, Peeta." I mumble, ashamed at the breathy quality of my voice.
It's the gagging sounds coming from Johanna that effectively stops us. "Okay, the last thing I need to see is Brainless and Lover Boy starting their mating ritual." She gets up and kicks Gale's foot. "Let's go, Hawthorne."
"We better go, too." says Finnick as he and Annie stand up. "Nana Mags has probably had enough of little Finn tonight."
"Ah, before I forget!" Johanna says as she re-enter the living room that she had just vacated. "I'm never gonna play D&D with you ever again, Rory." She directs her venomous glare towards her brother-in-law.
Rory lifts his eyebrows and smirks. "Same time next week?" he asks.
Gale and Johanna exchange a silent conversation with their eyes. Finally, Gale relents. "Yes."
"Count us in, too!" says Annie.
Peeta and I are the last to leave. We say goodnight to Prim and Rory, then silently climb in our car.
Peeta takes my hand in his over the central console when the car is out of the parking lot. "So, what do you say? Are we playing again next week?"
I laugh and squeeze his hand. "Why not?" I answer him. "What does say thirty-two-years-old married couple more than hanging out at my sister's and her fiancé's house playing D&D?"
A/N: Sorry to all the D&D players out there for the many liberties I took with this little piece of writing! I was never really good at it, LOL.