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- Writing4YourLove
"Lavinia, come on down here," Her mother calls from the living room and she stops drawing the picture of the astronaut cat to go down the steep stairs, gripping the railing that is at least three inches taller than her as she pads downstairs on sock-clad feet. She slips on one of the stairs, but recovers three steps from the bottom. She looks around, smiling, wondering if anyone just saw that. She laughs; the reason unknown to her six-year-old mind. She's not hurt, maybe that's why, but it doesn't matter. She stands and runs down the rest of the stairs and into the living room, a feeling of invincibility overwhelming her.
She runs in and sits in the big, puffy armchair close to the lit fireplace. The fire flickers in a dance of happiness and joy. Is it happy, she wonders, because it's cold and white outside? The thought may not make sense to an adult – her parents sure don't seem to understand her fascination with the smallest details of everyday life – but they make perfect sense to her. Do fires ever want to be cold?
Her dad and little five-year-old brother sit in the room too. Her dad's on the couch next to her mom and her little brother is between them. It feels too . . . scary in the room for them to playing a board game like they do sometimes. Or any game. So why did her mom call her? She brushes the feeling away, knowing in her heart that nothing bad will happen. It never has, so it never will. This is, after all, the comforting logic she follows. If something unhappy hasn't happened, it probably won't.
She looks to her mom for a reason for the unhappiness. Her mom smiles, but it's a not-right smile. It confuses her, so she looks to her dad. "We need to talk to you about something." He says and she recognizes his tone. It's like the one he used when he told them the injured bird Lavinia found in the forest had died. Gentle, explaining something he knows they won't understand and they don't.
Their parents know the children could never fathom the horrors of the Hunger Games, the confusion behind their relationship. How do you explain something so terrible you don't even know how another person could do such a thing? Katniss has no idea how she could explain such things to her children, but it has to be be done. Soon her precious daughter will be learning about the Hunger Games in school – her daughter's already learned the basics of the rules and excuses soon they'll tell about separate Games, and her past. She'd rather they tell their children instead of having them read about their parents crimes in a textbook where they could so easily misinterpret the information their given. This way, they can answer the questions, because they know there will be questions.
Katniss takes over; watching her children carefully as she considers what she should say. How could she even begin? "A long, long time ago, before the Hunger Games stopped, when your father and I were just teenagers, my little sister was picked for the Hunger Games, but I volunteered to go in for her because I didn't want her to. Your father was also reaped and that's actually how we met."
Confused, Lavinia looks from her dad to her mom, "I thought only one could leave the Hunger Games."
"That's quite a long story." Peeta announces.
"Tell it," His son demands.
He hesitates, looking at Katniss for a moment, waiting for her to simply tell them there's not enough time or something else, but she doesn't. She nods for him to go on. "The Hunger Games we were in was the seventy-fourth. Even then, even though we barely knew each other, I still loved your mother very much. When we were in the Arena, we were the last two. We refused to kill each other so they had to let both of us win, but they weren't happy with that."
Lavinia still looks confused, "Why not? I mean, it's good when the princess and prince live happy forever after."
For a second he doesn't know what to say. His daughter's logic wasn't necessarily flawed, but fairy tales aren't real life. "They were like the evil step-mother of this story. They didn't want us together because we broke the rules of their Games." She accepts this somewhat, not completely satisfied. He knows she wants a happy ending. "Then the next year, we were picked for the Hunger Games again because that year they chose people who had won before. But the good guys got us out and your mother helped end the Hunger Games."
His daughter smiles again. "And then you guys got married and then got us and now we all live happy forever after?"
He smiles, "Yeah, now we all live happily ever after." Then he looks to his wife and she gives him a small smile before he kisses her lightly and repeats, "Happily ever after."
About a week after her parents told her of their Hunger Games, a new family moved to District Twelve. That on its own isn't strange, but what was odd was that they moved into the Justice Building with the Mayor. And that's not even all. The very next day a lady with a big, pink wig comes over and talks to Lavinia's mom for a long time. She doesn't understand what they're talking about, but her dad says it's about politics - that thing where people tell half-truths to get what they want. But why would her mom want to talk to the strange lady about politics?
Peeta watches as Titan and Lavinia color pictures of who-knows-what, wondering just how much longer they have until everything he and Katniss have worked to build – the safety and security of their children, the certainty that they won't have to go through what their parents did – comes crashing down. He knows it will. The president moving her daughter and grandson to this District with so many more Peacekeepers was a sign that something was happening.
Katniss was in the kitchen, talking with Effie Trinket who only recently showed up again. "Their probably going to begin the Hunger Games again," Effie says worriedly, "They've already got most of an Arena up."
"How much longer do we have?" Katniss asks softly, trying to make sure her children can't hear her.
Effie shakes her head, "Not long; a couple of years at the least."
Katniss doesn't respond, instead she drops her head into her hands and wonders for the first time why she ever agreed to have children.
When Effie leaves late in the afternoon, Peeta and Katniss go into their room to talk in private about what Effie had said. They both know if the Hunger Games start again, there is a chance Titan or Lavinia could be reaped. They may even be picked directly for it if the Capitol really wants revenge on Katniss.
Upstairs in her room, Lavinia still doesn't know what's going on. She hopes against hope that things could be normal from now on for her and her family. But, although she doesn't realize it, things would only get worse.
That night at dinner, her mother told her never to talk to the child who'd moved into the Justice Building. And maybe that's what lead her to speak with the boy in her year in school the next day and agree to meet him in a small clearing in the woods where they'd talk most of the night and only when dawn had almost come, agree to meet there again the next night when their parents and siblings were asleep and go home to their own families.