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II. The Princess and The Pig
Prim walked through the front door of her house, and she inhaled deeply as she stepped through the threshold. Katniss had come home early, and she had caught her children picking up their recently used and scattered lethal weapons. She had come across Prim and Cain cleaning up after their training session, and she had ordered them inside the house—immediately. She wasn't too happy, and Prim really wasn't looking forward to what was soon to follow. Punishment.
Katniss's fatal glare immediately shifted from her husband, whose eyes were trained on the floor, and swiftly scanned over her defiant children. Cain's eyes went to the floor immediately as well. He learned from his father, and he learned fast. Prim, on the other hand, seemed to have a death wish, as her own blazing blue eyes pierced her mother's gruesome grey ones. The two fatal females seemed to stand there, unmoving and unnerved for what seemed to be a century. Then, she spoke.
"Prim, Cain, I have told you two, time and time again—" Katniss started, but Prim cut her off.
"—You have told us, time and time again, to defend ourselves, to protect ourselves, to stay alive. You have told us, time and time again, that we must train, teach, and test ourselves—constantly—in order to able to preserve and protect our lives. We were doing just that." Prim retorted, before her mother could even begin to chastise her.
Katniss eyed her daughter with her sinister Seam eyes, and Prim responded with an unexpected action—she pouted. She tried her best to look endearing and innocent. Katniss was trying her best to look threatening and tyrannical. Katniss was failing. Prim was succeeding. Now, all she need was quick glance from her father to seal the deal, and moments after the idea entered her mind, the thought became reality.
Peeta looked up at his daughter, and then turned towards his wife. "She's right Katniss. They were only training. You can't expect them to be able to put their theoretical training, and then transform it into real-life reactions on the spot, in a real life-or-death situation. They have to be prepared, and that means practicing where pain is a factor—a legitimate factor that they can, and will, actually experience. How else will they learn to overcome it? They have to learn to wield weapons, by actually wielding weapons." Peeta defended his children, and Katniss turned to him in surprise, just as Prim and Cain went wide-eyed at their father's remarks.
He was never truly a supporter of the fact that his children actively wielded weapons—deadly weapons that required expert handling. The fact that Peeta was now defending their actions meant only one thing. He was speaking the truth. They would indeed need these experiences and skills to keep them alive in the future, which raised one simple question. It was question that both Prim and Cain thought of at the same time.
Both of the siblings conjured the same thought at the same time as they turned to look at each other: 'What did the future hold that was so dire and drastic, so lethal and life-threatening, that it required his children to be skilled slayers to be able to survive it?'
Katniss gave Peeta a knowing look, quietly ordering to remain silent and stop speaking at once. But there was also another emotion on her face, although this secondary emotion was not so easy to read. Cain saw it, but he couldn't decipher it; however, after a few moments Prim decoded her mother's deadpan expression, and she read her like a book. And then she wished that she hadn't.
She saw something on her mother's face that seemed so far from normality, so out of the ordinary, so perplexing, so surreal, that it spread its way into Prim as well. She saw fear. There was fear in Katniss's eyes. Prim had been confronted by many things in her life, but never this. Fear. Her mother was fierce. She was not fearful. Ever. Except today.
Katniss's many mental breakdowns and long and extensive healing process had been grueling, grueling both for her and for all those around her. But, regardless of this fact, she had become better. Her children were mostly to blame for her recovery. She couldn't be an active force in their lives, in protecting them, if she was a sad, psychotic mess. Her fear had long since become a memory, and Prim had not seen this dark and dangerous emotion creep across her mother's face, ever. Except today. Today, something was different. Today, something was dire. Today, something was wrong.
Cain seemed to have been oblivious to any of this, though, because he simply continued the conversation in the same unnerved manner that he had when Prim had her blades at his throat. "Yeah mom, we were just training. We were never in any real danger. No one was wounded or seriously hurt …well, except for the fact that you may not be able to have any grandchildren—at least from me, y'know 'cause Prim likes taking cheap shots." Cain comically soothed the situation.
Peeta chuckled, and Prim rolled her eyes. But it was Katniss that took the most attention with her reaction. That was because she had none—no reaction whatsoever. Cain now looked at his mother with sternness and sincerity. "Mom, we're fine." he assured her, and she nodded. Then she did something that made him positive he had convinced her that they were, in fact, alright. She smiled. Katniss Everdeen-Mellark smiled, and that was a true rarity. Cain smiled back.
"Okay. We can talk about it later. But, until then, we have company coming soon. We need food, and we need food that is not fatal to our guests." Katniss proclaimed, and everyone chuckled slightly. The food that this family stomached was hard for anyone else to even look at sometimes. They ate healthy foods, but they did not eat the tastiest of foods. Sometimes Johanna swore that Katniss was still eating like she was in the "Games."
The Hunger Games were not something that Katniss talked about openly, but she showed her detest for her dark and demented days inside the arena obviously enough, even without mentioning it, by doing one thing: by making sure her children could survive it, if they so needed to.
Almost every day, Peeta and Katniss taught and trained their children as best they could in skills of survival. Prim and Cain didn't need their parents to instruct them on when to train, though. Every day, regardless of whether they were in the presence of their parents or not, they trained. They practiced and perfected their physical prowess, and they did it for one reason—to ensure that their mother was not worried, to ensure that they could survive the circumstances that Katniss and Peeta had.
All of the living "Victors" were this way with their children—all of the Victors, and Gale. He was the same way with his own children; although, any details regarding Gale was scarce, so no one ever knew how recently the latest piece of information on him was acquired, or how accurate it was. Katniss didn't speak about—or to—Gale in excess. In fact, she rarely spoke about Gale. He wasn't a sore subject. He just wasn't a subject, period. However, although Katniss didn't speak to Gale, she did see him—albeit not often, but often enough.
Her career as a "District Diplomat" required her to travel between the Districts to perform her duties—to resolve conflicts and create calm and understanding. Gale, being one of the top-tier "Protectors of Panem's Powers," was assigned to lead the squad of expertly trained soldiers, who were specifically assigned to protect Panem's presidential family. Thus, their paths often crossed. He often had to work with Katniss. She had retired from revolutions and retaliations after the rebellion. She was all but finished with violence. Gale, however, seemed to have become more vicious and violent as the years went on.
Thus, where Katniss's words—words Peeta had taught her to speak—seemed to fail, Gale's violence was a handy tool. There were few dissenters with the way things were—the few whom everyone in Panem condemned and cast-aside—who wanted the Capitol to reemerge as the leading and tyrannical power of Panem. These few were often talked out of their crazy schemes before violence was used, and in most instances, Katniss's soothing words brought an end to their planned revolutions or rebellions, without an ounce of bloodshed. However, when words failed, violence was victorious. This was proved true, time and time again, when Gale stopped seemingly unstoppable uprisings against President Paylor and her family.
Although these fatal few who wanted the President overthrown were small in numbers, they were large in willpower, and it took someone with an equally large will to bring them down. It took Gale Hawthorne. President Paylor was a kind and caring leader, and she showed a truly tender side towards her constituents. The citizens of Panem praised her for almost every action she took, and those few who did not like her, tolerated her. The rest were allowed to keep their opinions—and even voice them freely—but once they began to speak of rebellion, Katniss—and Gale as well—were informed, and an intervention was planned and executed.
Gale's violence was a thing of the past, though. Gale had since loosened his lethal grip on his weapons—ever since his daughter was born. He had remained the jaded, violent young man that he was while raising his sons, but for some unforeseeable reason, he changed—in an almost contradictory way—when his daughter was born.
Prim had seen Gale and his family on a few occasions in the past. Though she had rarely seen them, there was always one person that she gravitated towards in the Hawthorne family—Clover Hawthorne. Clover Hawthorne was someone that Prim truly respected. She would never understand how that girl lived with such an overprotective father, a somewhat psychotic, viciously violent mother, and three brothers, but she respected her for it.
With this confusing cloud of thoughts finally clearing, Prim now refocused on the present, and she listened intently to what her mother had to say.
"One of you," Katniss said, pointing to her children, "will go hunting, and I'll clean and cook whatever meat you happen to bring back. Peeta will bake, and the other one of you," Katniss again pointed to her children, "will help him, so that he doesn't overwork himself and doze off before they arrive, again." Katniss gave her orders, and her family all nodded in response. Peeta hung his head slightly. The last time they had company, he had in fact fallen asleep before their guests had arrived.
"I guess I'll hunt, and Prim will bake because—" Cain began to say, but his sister cut him off before he could finish.
"—Actually, I think I want to hunt. Cain, if you don't mind, you can help dad with the baking." Prim interrupted her brother, and he simply nodded in a dumbfounded manner.
Prim loved to go hunting, but if there was choice between hunting and baking, then she would choose the latter. She loved to bake. Cain didn't dislike it; he just liked hunting more-so than baking. One thing was clear. If Prim was choosing to go hunting instead of staying to bake, then she seriously needed some time to herself, some time to clear her head. Cain couldn't deny her that, although he would have liked to know what was going through her mind at that very moment, what she needed time in the trees to sort out. But that would have to wait.
Katniss nodded. Their assignments were given, and they had all readily accepted them.
"Alright then, you'll probably need this." Cain said, handing his sister the steel detachable bow that was on his back. Prim shook her head, and Cain looked at her quizzically.
Prim sometimes—more often than not—liked to hunt with blades, rather than with bows. It took a significantly longer time to complete the same task, using only throwing knives, a sword, and some skinners, but she always liked using blades. They required more time, more patience, more stealth, and more attention to be paid to one's prey. But today, they were on time constraints; they did not have any extra time for her to use blades. A bow and arrow was her only option, and she knew this.
Cain held his hand out to her, his bow obviously still being offered to her, and then he slowly dropped it, expecting an explanation for her unaccepting nature.
"I won't need that old thing. I prefer using a real bow. I'll use 'old faithful.'" Prim stated, and Cain nodded in understanding.
Katniss smiled once again, and Prim caught her mother's facial expression and returned it, before heading upstairs to her mother's room, and straight to the chest that contained her father's old bow. She cautiously and carefully lifted the lid of the chest, opening it, and revealing the old, ornately plain bow beneath. She quickly donned the quiver that was beside the bow, and she then proceeded to pull out her grandfather's old bow and hung it carefully around her back. She then took some rope and a few blades that were also located in the chest.
When she returned downstairs, Peeta and Cain were already fast at work baking, and Cain's weapons were stowed away in a corner by the door. Prim went for the front door, only to have her mother callout to her.
"Prim, be careful." she commanded, and Prim turned around and nodded to her mother.
"Always am." she responded, smirking. Katniss smirked in return.
"…And, don't catch anything too large. Remember, whatever we don't finish here, we can't take it to the capitol, so it'll just end up wasting." her father interjected, and Prim stopped short, just as the doorknob was in her grasp.
'The Capitol?' she thought to herself.
"We're going to the Capitol?" she asked her father, and he responded by nodding, all the while adjusting knobs on the stovetop in front of him.
"Yes. President Paylor wants all of the past Victors—the ones she respects anyways—to meet with her, before she gives her announcement. Johanna, Kolack, and Thal will be here shortly. Finnick and Annie will be here a little later, and whenever Haymitch arrives—which may be a while, depending on how much liquor he has consumed—we can leave for the train station. Beetee and some other higher-ups will meet us in the Capitol." Peeta explained while he and Cain exchanged chuckles and chortles over which apron looked better on whom.
Prim raised an eyebrow at this new information, and she then turned her head towards her mother. What she saw there, however, didn't calm her down. It had quite the opposite effect. Prim saw it again, and once again, it spread its cruel, cold fingertips inside of her own mind. Fear. Fear was painted on Katniss's face once again, but this time, the fear was easily readable to anyone who was looking.
With one quick smile from her mother, Prim was out the door, wanting desperately to escape fear's cold clutches. She hated being afraid. It wasn't because it made her feel weak—although it did—but because it reminded her of one crucial fact that she continuously ignored. It reminded her that she had something to fear after all—something that was worse than death. Life. Life was worse than death. She had only heard of the horrors that real life held, and she scarcely wanted to experience them. The War. The Annihilation. The Uprisings. The Reapings. The Hunger Games. The Rebellion. Sometimes, she wondered if those who died in all of that chaos were truly sad, or if by some small chance, they might have been happy to finally have an end to this wretched thing called life.
Suddenly, Prim dreaded whatever this announcement was that Paylor was to relay to all of Panem.
She shook her head clear of these troubling thoughts, and she snapped back to reality, to the present, to current circumstances, and to the task at hand. To hunting.
She made her way to the hole under the fence that her mother used to exploit so often as a teenager. There was a gate now—a door in the fence that allowed anyone and everyone clear access to the woods beyond, so long as they knew the dangers that came with it—but, regardless of this door being there, Prim always chose to use the old hole instead. It just felt…right.
She quickly and quietly snuck under the fence, and she resumed her normal walking pace once she was clear of the meadow. She was in the woods now, in her woods. She was at home. Everywhere else, she let her mind wander, thought about anything and everything that her mind could fathom, and let her body follow her mind's orders. Not here. Here, she let her body wander, did about anything and everything that her body could perform, and let her mind follow her body's orders. Everywhere else, her body obeyed her mind. In the woods, her mind followed her body's orders. In the woods, everything was reversed. In the woods, things were right.
She continued to walk, seemingly aimlessly, for what seemed like hours. She set some snares. She shot some rabbits. But, it wasn't until she came upon an outcropping that overlooked a small depression some feet below her, that she saw something that made her mind start working again. She saw deer—two deer. Her father had told her not to bring back too much meat. But two deer were the perfect amount of meat for the company that they were having.
She dropped down to one knee. She took her bow, and loaded two arrows across the string. She raised her arms to her prey's heads, and she expertly aligned the arrows with the deer so that one shot would kill two. She was ready to release, but then something stopped her. A sound topped her. It was a sound that she hated to hear. Something made her want to redirect her already-loaded arrows at the source of the sound.
"Hey there, princess." called a smug voice from the trees behind her. It was a voice with a serrated steel edge, an edge that cut deeper than any knife ever could.
Prim sighed deeply and responded almost instinctively without a second's thought. "Pig." she greeted the interloper who had intruded on the sanctity of her woods and invaded her sanctuary. This was the trespasser who had disrupted her silence, and as such, forced her back into the real world. This could only be one person. Thal. Apparently Johanna had arrived earlier than expected. Or, perhaps Prim really had been out here for hours.
"Ouch. That's a little unfair, don't you think?" he questioned in a seemingly curious voice, but upon closer inspection, one could hear that his voice was laced with a venomous and vile dose of cynicism. Prim still did not turn around to look at him.
"No." she replied in a dangerously dark tone. Thal was crossing into the badlands. He had already invaded her sanctuary. Provoking her further could prove fatal. And he knew it. She could feel the smirk edge up on his face.
"Yes, it is." he responded.
"What would be unfair, is calling you a pig, and then cutting out your vocal chords so you could not offer a rebuttal. That would be unfair—albeit, an action that would not be below me." she stated in a cold, dethatched, lethal voice—the tone of a hunter.
Thal just chuckled. "No. That might actually be justified. But, what you said is unfair. You don't have a single shred of support, not one piece of evidence, to back the claim that you have just so-carelessly made." he retorted, and she could tell that he was enjoying this far too much.
"It does not matter. It is fair. We are all free to do with our bodies and minds as we see fit. I can call you pig, with or without any substantial proof. It does not matter, so long as I respect the fact that everyone else—living or otherwise—was brought into this world, and bred by the world itself. Everyone has the right to live, to exist and to thrive. So long as I respect that right, and do not interfere with their ability to live, I can do whatever so see fit. …And I have plenty of proof to support the claim, you pig." she responded in a dangerously level-headed tone.
"So, what you're saying is that killing is wrong and inexcusable?" he asked innocently. She still had not looked at him, but she could almost picture the exact facial expressions that he was making as he continued to taunt her. She lowered her bow, but that was for his protection, not the deer's protection—which, surprisingly, had not yet run off.
"No. What I'm saying is that everyone has the right to live. But the moment that someone threatens my right to live, I have the right—no, the privilege—to preserve my own life; I have the right to kill them—not that it truly matters. No one gives a damn about rights and privileges—not anymore. And when disregarding those two from the equation—rights and privileges—there remains only one factor for determining who should be killed and who should live in fight to the finish." she stated, all the while eyeing her prey to make sure that they did not escape.
"…And, that would be…?" he inquired above his normal volume, and as he did so, she raised her bow to her prey. They were beginning to move. He smirked, and she wasn't watching him, but she knew that he was smirking. She hated that smirk.
But right now she had larger concerns to think of than his stupid smirk. Her prey—her targets—were escaping. She raised her bow, and leveled it at their heads. The two deer were straying apart, however, and she was able to keep only one deer consistently in her sights. Whatever she did, she would lose a deer. And it was all his fault. Thal was to blame.
She sighed deeply, and she released her arrows, knowing that one would hit, and hoping that other would follow suit. As she released her loaded bringers of death, she answered Thal's question. "There is no more honor, no more 'rights,' no more 'privileges.' The only way to determine who should—or would—win in a fight to the finish, would be to judge the fight by which warrior is, simply put...—" Prim started speaking, but trailed off, and was simultaneously interrupted by what occurred next.
Her arrow that she knew would kill did just that. It killed. However, her second arrow flew mere inches by the neck of the second, plumper deer. This was not what stopped her speech, though. She expected that to happen. She expected her second arrow to miss. What she did not expect, however, was to see a sharpened steel throwing axe rocket out from behind her and catch the deer that she had just missed in the neck, effectively bringing it down. The arrow and the axe hit at the same time, and the two deer crumpled to the ground almost simultaneously. It was almost as if the two hunters had planned for their kills to happen in this fashion.
For the first time since he had arrived, she finally turned around to look at Thal. She turned to look at his face, to look at his bright brown eyes, to look at his dark brown hair that was a mess of organized chaos, to look at his physically fit form, to look at the boy whom she constantly cursed for being so much like and animal, and for being so attractive. Thal being attractive would not have been a bad thing, had she not been constantly trying to outdo him and prove him wrong. But she was constantly trying to do those things. And the mere fact that he wasn't hideous made her fury towards this animal all the more difficult to channel, which in turn, made her all the more furious.
Thal spoke first. "…You were saying? The only way to determine who should win a fight to the finish, would be to judge the battle by which warrior is…" he trailed of, expecting an answer, and smirking as he did so. While he was speaking, he was buttoning his dark brown lumber jacket that housed a variety of axes and blades.
"…Better." Prim answered grudgingly. Thal smirked at this, and his sickly cynical eyes bore deep into her brutal blue ones. She returned his glare, and neither of them moved a muscle, until he spoke once again, and once again he split the silence apart with his smugness.
"So, which one of us would win in a fight to the finish?" he questioned with another smirk.
She raised herself up on both of her feet, and she approached the boy before her. She came within reaching distance of him, and she stared deeply, with an intense concentration, into his own eyes. "Thal, if we were in a fight to the finish, I would kill you. If it took every breath in my body, every ounce of energy, every drop of determination, I would use it all, to kill you." she stated in a viciously vehement voice that was dripping with acidity.
Thal chuckled once again. She raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't have to work so hard, princess."
She was now truly curious. "Do explain." she offered, and so he explained.
"You wouldn't have to try so hard to kill me. You are already built to kill. You are a deception, a walking oxymoron, a living paradox. You're a deathtrap." he said slyly.
"How so?" Prim asked impatiently, her voice now verging on a violent tone yet again.
"You lure your prey in with your beauty, and then 'snap,' your killer instinct ends their life before they realize that they were ever doomed. You make your prey want to come to you. And I couldn't blame them. You are just as beautiful as you are brutal. And that doesn't make you weak. It makes you immeasurably more fatal." he responded, his eyes locking with her own, and within them were a sort of tangible level of concentration, almost like he believed what he had said.
His words were wreaking havoc in her mind, but Prim didn't show it. She didn't blush. She didn't back away. She didn't even respond verbally. Instead, she proved his point. Throughout his speech, he had come immeasurably close to her, and their faces were now centimeters apart. And Thal had a blade pressed to the back of his neck.
Prim gently touched the blade to his neck—just enough to let him know it was there—and then she smirked.
"You should take your own advice, and stay away from the deathtrap." she cooed mockingly.
Now it was his turn to smirk. "Who said I wanted to stay away?" he questioned, and her smirk dropped somewhat. The silence that ensued was deafening. Prim didn't release her blade, and he didn't release his smirk.
Finally, she sheathed her blade, and put her bow on her back. Thal was still smirking.
"At least be useful, and help me retrieve the game." she ordered, and he didn't question her. He followed her obediently—and without protest as he usually did. But, she would have much rather endured his protesting, than watching that stupid smirk of his linger on his face. As they made their way back to the Victors' Village, her snares and their kills in tow, his smirk didn't diminish.
She hated that smirk. That stupid, smug, senseless smirk. That smirk that eloquently articulated one simple fact, without saying anything at all. That smirk that said that he had won. He had a blade to neck, and his life was almost ended. He was at the mercy of another, yet somehow, he believed that he had won. Perhaps he had. But how? If he had won, then it meant that Prim had lost. And Primrose Rue Everdeen-Mellark did not lose. Yet, somehow, for some reason, he was smirking. He had won. Prim had lost. It would not happen again. Prim would have to recalculate her approach to this pig. After all, the princess and the pig were far from different. They weren't different. They were simply opposite.
A/N: Well, please R&R and let me know what you thought! Stay tuned for the next update!