The day dawns blustery, windy and cold. I dress quickly-leggings and lace-up boots, a tunic and my mother's old leather jacket. I tug a hat over my curls-my mother says I get them from my grandfather, who died when she was eleven- and tiptoe out into the hall.
The Village is silent. There are no victors anymore, haven't been since before I was born, so the Victor's Village is just the Village now. Haymitch lives across the green, as well as anyone who can afford the upkeep of the fine houses.
I slip through the house with my mother's stealth. Everyone says I'm a miniature of her, except for my father's blue eyes and the curls. I inherited so much of her-the hunting, the stealth, the stubbornness. But I haven't inherited the nightmares.
Sometimes when I wake up at night I can hear her screaming. When Asher was little he used to crawl into my bed with me, but now that he's fourteen and I'm almost seventeen, that doesn't happen anymore. Besides, he turned annoying just months after he started crawling in with me, and hasn't even been in my room since.
I leave my house, gently closing the door behind me. I cross the green, the frosty grass crunching under my boots and my breath making clouds in the air, until I've reached the pen outside Haymitch's house. The geese are all huddled in their shed. Haymitch is too geriatric and too forgetful to pay much attention to them, so I do.
I can see people crossing the Meadow in the pale morning light, people who work at the medicines factory. Then air is always pungent with the sharp smell of it by noon. There are worse things, though. They used to mine coal, but the mines only stopped smoking a decade ago, over twenty years after 12 was firebombed. The mine is gone.
There's a road, more of a wide gravel trail, that leads through the woods to 13 no one travels on. Traffic scares away game, so that's good, but it's a reminder to so many of war and loss. You can see it from here, curving up from the square. You can see lots from the Village. I can see the rebuilt homes and shops ringing the square, bits of the markets-the newly reborn Hob and the real, estimable market- and the train station and warehouses they use to store and cart medicine. I pause, shivering, to watch tiny people move around the city.
I grab the feed bucket and scatter some seeds, then bang my way into Haymitch's house yelling "Get up, Haymitch! Time to feed the geese!"
Haymitch grunts, non-committal, from the living room. The place is cluttered and messy, but at least there's no food on the floor today. I put the coffeepot on, fill the goose bowl with fresh water, and yell at Haymitch to clean his kitchen. He grunts as he shuffles by, dressed in a bathrobe and socks. I look away.
"Take a bath, Haymitch," I say, disgusted.
"You are so your mother," he mumbles, disgruntled.
I roll my eyes. Everyone says that. Haymitch himself said it yesterday.
Outside, the lights are on in almost all the houses now. It's still early, but kids will be heading to school. You go until sixth grade and then you learn whatever you need to learn to stay alive. Both my parents had money form when they won the unspeakable Hunger Games, but it's gone now. They didn't want it. I get it. Now, my father owns a bakery in town, mostly run by employees now, while my mother spends her days in the woods, working on the house.
It's a little cabin, four miles into the woods and three miles from the lake. My mother loves it. It's full of things from her happy life, completely free of painful memories. It keeps her busy, something to work on. Besides that she hunts, feeding some of the poorer families in 12, since I hunt for us now. She also works on the family book, and she's even gone so far as to visit people. People from the old life, friends she met in 13 who came back, people who helped put her back together again after the rebellion, people she feeds. It makes her happy. So do I, she says.
She calls me Prim. My name is Daie, Daie Primrose Everdeen. Daie as in "dawning of a new", Primrose for the little sister who died years before I was even thought of. I kept my mother's name; so did Asher. My father is the last of the Mellarks. He wants to name to die with him, to eliminate it from the world. My father blames himself for a lot of what happened in the rebellion, so when he dies, he wants his name and all it was associated with to die with him. My mother wanted that too, but my father said te Everdeens had done too much good. "Think of Prim," he said.
So I'm an Everdeen.
I think the reason I make my mother happy is that I remind her of herself, only just "the good part" of her. My mother has killed people. She is responsible for the murders of thousands of others. But it's all right. She saved everyone else.
She doesn't believe it.
She loves my brother desperately, too. Asher Finnick Everdeen. Asher as in "ashes," as in "beauty from ashes". "Finnick" for the tribute who died so close to freedom. We see his son, Corin Odair, when he comes to 12 on business. Asher is a lot like my father, charismatic and funny and good with words. That's why my mother loves him, because he's like Dad.
Dad loves us so much, too. He's steady as a rock while my mother can be volatile. Haunted an devastated by memories as she is, there have been days when she's in her room in the dark, unable to believe she's safe.
I reach the house and poke my head in. It smells like coffee and cinnamon bread. Asher is slumped at the kitchen table, glowering a little, his nose buried in a history book. He's obsessed with history.
Dad is making toast. He grins at me. "Morning, sweetheart."
"Peeta!" My mother yells form upstairs. "Do you know where my bow is?"
"No, Katniss," He calls back.
"Daie?"
I blush. "I've got it," I yell.
"You have your own!"
"Yours is better!"
It hums awake in your hand and looks so beautiful, but it's so deadly. My bow is old and made out of wood. Comparison? I think not.
"Daie Primrose Everdeen, please go get my bow." My mother calls, exasperated, appearing on the stairs. She looks a lot younger than she is, thirty at most. Her hair hangs in a braid down her back and her face is sprinkled with scars.
"Yes ma'am," I say, running up to my bedroom and grabbing the bow. "I was using it for the late geese yesterday," I explain sheepishly.
"Just ask next time, okay Prim?" She asks wearily, ruffling my hair.
"Okay," I whisper as she brushes by me on the stairs.
I grab my own bow and arrows, plant a kiss on Dad's cheek and slip out.
"No breakfast?" Dad calls after me.
"I want an early start," I call back. "Will you be here when I get back?"
"Both of us will," my mother says, running her hand through Dad's ashy blonde hair.
"Bye," I call.
Outside, it's still cold, but geese honk in the distance. It got cold so fast, most of the geese hadn't flown south yet. Their V formations dot the sky, easy pickings.
I sprint for the Resting Place, the mass grave they used to call the Meadow, where I can get a clear shot at the birds as they fly overhead. You would never know what the Resting Place was by looking at it. A field dotted with a rainbow of wildflowers in the summer, bordered by woods and 12, it's picturesque. You can see everything from where the ground slopes up to meet the woods.
I go to one knee and fit an arrow into my bow, squinting at the pale grey expanse of sky. My heart pounds rhythmically in my ears, my breath is measured. This is why I love hunting-I was born for it.
The V formation sails into view. I let the arrow fly, taking out the leader. The geese erupt in noise and grind to a halt, flapping aimlessly in the air, complete idiots. I take down another three before they have the sense to get going. This happens in the timespan of a minute, if that, lightning fast and on autopilot. I lower my bow, breathless and pink- cheeked.
"Katniss?" Comes a voice.
I turn. A man who looks like a Seamie stands at the edge of the meadow, his face disbelieving. He's well-muscled, with dark hair and grey eyes and olive skin. He looks vaguely familiar.
"Katniss is my mother," I say, getting to my feet and crossing uncertainly to him. "Can I help you?
"Your mother?" he says in disbelief. I arch an eyebrow. "Yeah, my mother."
"And she said she'd never have kids," he murmurs. I step back, startled. So he knows her, then, or at least knew her well before I was born. "Who's your father? No, let me guess,' he says softly, his voice slightly bitter. "Those are his eyes."
"Whose eyes?" I challenge, nervous.
"Peeta's."
I stare at him. "How do you know them?"
"Daie!"
I turn to see Asher standing opposite us. "Dad wants to know if you need to go into town for more arrowheads!"
"Just a minute," I yell.
'Who was that?" The man asks, staring at Asher.
"My brother."
He lets out a low whistle.
"Hey Dad?"
I turn again to see a dark-haired teenager, just a year or two older than me, standing near us. He looks a lot like the man before me, his son maybe?
"Look," I say slowly. "You'd better come with me."
The man lets out a humourless laugh. "That's why I came. I need to talk to Katniss. I saw you, and thought-"
"I was my mother," I say wearily. "Yeah, I get that a lot." I nod at the boy. "He coming with us?"
"You bet." The boy grins, a friendly grin. He has green eyes and just a splash of pale freckles across his nose. "I'm August."
"I'm Daie," I say, waving half-heartedly.
I lead them over the frozen meadow towards the house, full of questions. Who is the man and how does he know my mother? He looks vaguely familiar, like I've seen a photo of him somewhere, but I can't place him and it's driving me nuts. I come across the fallen geese, shot through their hearts, and string their necks together and tie them to my belt.
"Gruesome," August comments.
"So's life," I point out, irritable.
"Sounds like something Katniss would say," The man says, slightly amused. I fix him a withering glare. "Just shut up about my family until we get there, all right?"
We walk the rest of the way in silence.
Just as I go to open my front door, it opens, and my mother is standing there with a smile on her face, apparently just about to leave. Her face pales when she sees the man.
"Gale," she breathes.
"Hey Catnip," Gale breathes.
Of course it's Gale. I've hear his name in passing, seen pictures of him in the family book. Of course he would mistake me, with all my mother's archery skills and her old leather jacket, as the hunting partner he spent so many years with.
Of course, Gale and my mother last saw each other as she was being dragged off to prison or worse after she killed Coin. And Gale supposedly had a hand in creating the bomb that killed Prim, the aunt I never knew, that my mother so desperately loved.
"What-what are you doing here?' my mother gasps.
"Katniss? Who is it?" My father's voice drifts down the hallway.
He appears behind my mother, wiping his hands on a dish towel, a smile on his face. It disappears instantly when he sees Gale.
"Gale," he says stonily, his voice like ice. His gaze lands on me. "Get in, Daie," he says, and his face is like a thundercloud. I push past Gale and my parents and into the house. I practically dive into the kitchen to escape the awful tension in the hall. Asher is standing there, an eyebrow raised.
"What did you do?" Asher hisses.
"That's Gale," I whisper, sure I'm pale. I sneak a glance back down the hall.
"The Gale?"
"No, just some random stranger I picked up named Gale! Of course, the Gale!" I hiss, poking my head around the corner and peering back down the hallway. "Shut up so I can eavesdrop!"
Asher, never one to question breaking rule, obediently shuts up.
