A Quick movement flashed across her peripheral and her knees bent into ready position. Bouncing slightly on her toes, Katniss trained her eyes on the trees, turning her sword loosely in her right hand—her left flexing in anticipation. Rustling grass caught her attention and she weaved herself through the air, dodging a stab from the boy who stood behind her.
The wet rip of sword through flesh stilled in the air before dropping thickly into silence, the only remnant of it reverberating through the sword and vibrating though her body. And as she felt the boy's blood soak into her clothing, she let out a single vaulted laugh. The muted thud as the boy collapsed into the dry dirt and matted grass remained was already behind her as she re-sheathed the sword and walked into the trees at a leisurely pace.
Looking up at a tree as she reached the forest, she spied a camera, its lens shifting to focus on her face. With fire in her eyes and a smirk quirking up her lips, Katniss bore into the eyes of Panem and spoke.
"It's much more thrilling than hunting though, isn't it?"
A cannon sounded behind her, signalling the death of the boy who lay as a mere heap in the matted grass of the clearing, and a hovercraft dropped down to pick up his shell.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the victor of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen!" boomed the speakers.
Picking up her bow from where she had left it at the base of a tree, Katniss slung it across her back and stalked back to the cornucopia. The peacekeepers swarmed her, trying to inject her with various fluids whilst she fought to push through them to the hovercraft. Removing the bow from her shoulder, she pulled an arrow from its canister and watched as it sliced through the air and into the forehead of a peacekeeper. She looked around to the rest, making sure that her message had been received and proceeded to walk through the swarm of now silent peacekeepers to the waiting hovercraft.
Gale had told her before she left that killing would come much more easily if she thought of it as a hunt. But he didn't know. Hunting had been necessary, this was fun. You couldn't toy with a deer before you killed it; you couldn't watch the light leave its eyes or the movement fall from its limbs. A deer just dropped. The other tributes, however, had struggled, clawed, screamed, threatened and begged. A deer couldn't provoke, it could only drop.
When they touched ground in the Capitol and walked down the ramp, Katniss growled at the paparazzi that probed her about stupid things like her predictions for the upcoming fashion season, or how she would next be donning her iconic flames. Peacekeepers surrounded her from every angle, shielding her from the flashing lights of the cameras and the hurried questions from brightly coloured reporters. They guided her though the crowd to a car with ominous tinted windows and shoved her inside, sending her to the floor of the vehicle and firmly closing the door. Picking herself up, Katniss slammed her fist against the window as the car began to move, carrying her away from the cameras and fans.
"Easy there, sweetheart," said a gruff voice from the front of the car, "you're home."