Day Four- Pride
I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.- Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games
A desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self. On a less negative scale, it is a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions
This is all about me for once. Not anyone but me. I need to prove to myself once again that I can do this. And if I can do this, then I know everything will be okay once more. I grab my bow and quiver of arrows from the hallway closet, taking my father's jacket out as well since it is early still yet and there is a low mist covering the dark ground outside. No one will see me, I don't think anyway, because the sun is at least a couple of hours from awakening itself.
I haven't been out here in months, so much has happened and so much has changed. I was afraid to go hunting after I, me, Katniss Mellark, tripped over a tree root. I never tripped. That was Peeta's thing, being loud and unknowingly clumsy. But me? No, it was a first and it was a sad day when he told me not to go out again "just in case".
But it's been seven months since that day and I feel more than capable of doing this now. There's no belly making me lose balance, my breasts have finally returned to their natural size, for the most part. I'll find out just how much that has affected me when I draw the bow. The baby is four months old now and she isn't suckling from me as much as she would because she prefers that Daddy feeds her from the bottle. So I'm off the hook with that. Peeta wakes up with her almost every time even though he is also up early to go to the bakery. But today is my day, all mine.
Walking into the woods is familiar, a second home that I haven't been to in so long. I can't wait to bring the baby out here, but I won't do it just yet, I need my woods for myself for just a little while longer. I find a spot to just stop in and stand, breathe for a moment and think about all that's happened in the last sixteen years. It was Peeta that made it so I would be able to come here in the first place.
I know that it was him that saved me, throwing me those loaves of bread, reminding me that there are good people in this world. It was the next day, the day I was going to thank him for that bread that I saw it, that first dandelion and remembered all that I knew of the forest and hunting. It's Peeta that I'm most proud of because he doesn't even know how much he gave that day. The baby we made together is a very close second, but Peeta will always have a part of my heart.