Just a drabble, though it is a bit long. Slight AU. Is actually an English assignment. I give my apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes I am sure to make. If you see one, point it out and I will fix it. Promise! My beta had pneumonia, so I'm just going to have to do without. Hope you enjoy!
I do not own Katniss, am not famous author, blah blah blah. I wish I was that rich haha!
Through Fire and Flames
The never spoke of the fire that day. In its own way, that fire was a precursor to everything, a flaming foreshadow of what was to come. Such a defining moment in a person's life should never go unrecognized, but sadly, human memory is fickle, and memories often lose the shine of significance as the years fade and die. Katniss was never a stranger to fire, or fate.
That day was in the summer of her tenth year. It had been before Gale had come swaggering into her life, all harsh brashness and bravado, before she had opened herself up to the possibility of trust. She was harder than, young and cold with the grim weigh of responsibility and life's bitterness. She had been a year with the bow, already holding it as a natural extension of her arm as she trod cautiously into the deep wilderness. Dry leaves crackled under her feet, barely shod in shoes long outgrown, the toe torn so her feet could fit inside. If not for the risk of infection a careless cut could bring, she would have gladly gone barefoot, wanting to feel a connection to the dry, baked earth. But, if she cut her foot and couldn't hunt, where would she be then? Where would her family be then? It was too much to risk for such little pleasure. So, the shoes stayed on.
The air felt dry, and the forest sounded odd without the gentle trickle of flowing water Katniss so desperately wanted to hear. This had been the driest summer anyone could remember, and her family wasn't getting enough water. Well, o one was, but everyone else didn't matter. Her family was her world, and she'd be damned if she had to watch Primrose go without water for a day longer. Today, she was going to go deeper than she ever had before, farther away from the safety of the town and the sometimes electrified chain linked fence. If she could find a water source, a larger body of water that had been unaffected by the drought, she would no longer fear her sister slowly dying of thirst. Katniss's own lips were crackled and bloody, and she could barely resist the urge to run her dry tongue over them. The iron tang of blood already lay heavy in her mouth, and she cringed at the taste.
There. A movement in the clearing ahead. Katniss froze, then slowly sank to the forest floor, her knees settling carefully in the dry underbrush so as not to make a sound. Carefully, she crept forward, feet tucked under her with her hands outstretched, stalking like a panther. Katniss was careful, carefully working her hands and feet under anything that might break and alert her prey ahead, before settling her weight fully onto that limb. Her bow and arrows slung across her back, she reached the edge of the clearing and peered out into open space. Partially shielded by the dry grass and dead leaves still clinging to the bough, her eyes widened.
Engulfing the wide expanse of the clearing was a pond, or what used to be one. What had once been a majestic sprawl of water was now more of a diminutive puddle, brackish in the center of a lake of crisping mud. It was sad in a way, that small puddle sinking into the center of a crater of drought. The reeds at the edge of that wide expanse of dried earth, once supple and vibrantly alive, are now stiff soldiers of dried husk. They stood as watchmen, guarding the dried pond and the hidden treasure it contained.
Standing among the reeds was the most beautiful doe Katniss had ever seen. Golden brown fur shimmered in the light, and wide chocolate eyes met hers for a split second before the arrow Katniss had shot came arching from the heavens, hitting the doe square in the eye. There was moment of frozen shock, where the life was abruptly snuffed from the other eye, before the large form of the woodland creature slowly toppled to the ground. Katniss shouldered her bow and stepped out of the forest's edge, out into the open space. Gliding over to the corpse of the deer, Katniss eyed the weight of the animal as the pool of blood began to grow. Ignoring that growing stain of red upon the earth, she mentally calculated how much she could sell this massive animal for at the Hob. She would have to get it to the butcher first, however, who would remove the pelt for her for a fair price. She would bring it in after dark, when most people were locked up in their homes. In the dark, hopefully less people would notice her dragging the large form through the streets. While she calculated the price of a life coldly taken in dire need, the ground drank up the lifeblood of the deer in greedy, consuming gulps.
Katniss began pulling out the rope she kept in her pack, tying the deer by the hooves without really having to think about it. It would take her ages to drag the deer all the way back to the town, even more so weighed down by the empty jugs in her pack that she planned to fill with water. Her main concern was making it back before dark. The scent of blood would draw predators to her, but it was at night when the bad boys really came out to play. Wild dogs and mountain lions would tear both her and the deer to shreds in a heartbeat. Not only would she be dead, but she would lose her hard-won prize. Katniss pulled the rope over her shoulder, pack now filled with life giving water, and had dragged the slain doe halfway across the clearing before the explosion hit her. A wave of animals suddenly sprung in a cacophony of sound from the underbrush on the opposite side of the clearing. Squirrels ran with their bushy tails streaming behind them, while a small dark cloud of birds shrieked and flapped across the sky. Another person would have been shooting away at the wave of free food that was scurrying across her feet. But Katniss had her eyes trained on the opposite end of the clearing, ignoring the animal's panic in her singular focus. As she saw the first trail of smoke wafting through the trees towards her, she dropped the rope, and the deer, springing away through the woods in the opposite direction.
Bounding through the woods, tree becoming smudged blurs in the speed of her passage, Katniss tried to tamp down her panic, beast-like in its ferocity. The containers filled with water bounced between her shoulder blades, but she couldn't afford the time to take the pack off, couldn't afford to think about anything but running. The animals had long since left her behind, leaving her to guess her best way through the dry woods, composed of tinder just waiting to go up in flames. She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe, lungs heaving desperately at the steadily warming air. Run. Run.
There was no warning. The world just transformed in an instant, becoming nothing more than a roaring wall of flames to her left. Katniss cursed herself. She must have veered off track. Or maybe the fire was just wider than she had anticipated. No time to think. Move. Spin around, run. She was weaving drunkenly through the trees, trying desperately to get away. No room for logic, none for thought. It was just her. Her and the fire and her desperately beating heart.
The air grew hazy with smoke, and her lungs were screaming in an entirely different way now. But still she ran, made akin to a mindless animal in her sheer, encompassing terror. In this moment, with her life hanging on the thin balance that was nature, known to some as destiny, she never once blinked in the face of that dark abyss. This was someone who would cling to life at all costs. In the years that followed, she sometimes wondered if it would have been better to let go instead.
But this young girl was unaware of the trials in the future, unaware that the burning mockingjay at her feet could ever have any meaning behind that which death lends to us. When at last, the girl who would one day be born again of fire and pain came to a stop, unable to go further, the smoke had cleared and the chain link fence glinted in the sun. She collapsed to her knees, trembling, and threw up smoke and a coating of ash. Wiping her mouth, she winced in sudden pain. She looked down at her arm, and saw a spurt of flames had traced a loving caress up her arm, the heat sending cool waves of pain through her. Later, when she lay in her room, trying to break through the haze of shock that covered her memories of that day, she could only remember this: the one glimpse of a burning bird as crushing heat roiled across her skin, and the cold chill of foreboding that ran down her spine as she looked at her arm and tried to remember the future.