When the Moon Fell in Love with the Sun

by Mejhiren

"It's something out of an old tale: a golden young man in a white bearskin, striking strange bargains with desperate souls on the cruelest night of winter." Peeta Mellark, winner of the 74th Hunger Games, returns from his Victory Tour to make the starving Everdeens an offer they can't refuse. Canon divergent, based on the fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon."

7. A Never-Ending Feast (Part One)

Author's Note: Thank you all a thousand times over for not giving up on this fic. This chapter has given me about six kinds of agony, and I finally gave in and split it into two parts. (Part Two is not yet finished, but I promise you won't have to wait months for it - not to mention, Part One is the longest chapter yet, so it should tide you over for a little. ;D)

Special thanks to DandelionSunset and annieoakley1 for supplying feedback (read: decorous squee, in advance) on drafts of this chapter, as well as to sponsormusings andjeeno2, to whom small but strategic teasers were leaked. :D

Happy reading, my darlings.

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Chapter Seven: A Never-Ending Feast (Part One)

…a table appeared, set with the finest meal one could imagine.
Never before had the girl tasted such food.
~East of the Sun and West of the Moon, retold by Kathleen and Michael Hague

I wake up hungry. Not gnawing ache hungry, nor the too-familiar numbness that comes from long-term hunger; just plain hungry. Like in the days when food was sufficient – not plentiful, but sufficient. The hearty fare yesterday – Peeta's hamper, the rolls and cookies, the luxurious hot chocolate and apple – has stirred up my long-suppressed appetite. I want breakfast, and for the first time in a long time, my mind's not telling my body not to get its hopes up.

I'm alone in the massive bed with the covers tucked snugly around me. Every last bit of my body is toasty warm, from my bare feet, buried beneath layers of soft blankets, to the tip of my nose, currently burrowed into the silky pile of the fox fur coverlet. Amidst the slightly musky scent of the fur, I smell cinnamon, fragrant burning wood, and sharp, sweet pine, whispering through the linen of the pillow beneath my cheek.

I'm so deliciously content that I don't want to move – until my bladder gives an impatient twinge, reminding me that I need to find the bathroom, and promptly. I open my eyes with a reluctant groan to find the room bathed in bright, pale winter sunlight from the windows above the bed. I slept too well and far too long; it must be mid-morning at the very least.

I turn back the blankets and shift up onto my knees to peer out the window. The glass is delicately painted with swirling feathers of frost, made iridescent by the morning sun. Beyond, I glimpse forest: an endless expanse of treetops, their barren branches traced with snow. A lonely sight, perhaps, but at this moment, one of the most comforting I've ever seen. This is the view from my bedroom – from my bed itself. I live in the woods now.

Smiling at the thought, I look back from the window and take in the bedroom at a glance. The fireplace of wild rock, banked with fresh logs; the evergreen walls – in daylight I see that they're textured with pine-needle-like indents, as though someone pressed a branch into the wet paint to create patterns – the dark wood furniture; the fur coverlet. In more ways than one, I live in the woods now.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, resigned at last to getting up. As my bare feet sink into the plush fur rug, I recoil, gasping, at a sudden, terrifying influx of memory. The white bear's fur against my feet as he lay behind me in the dream. Huddling inside Peeta's bearskin for warmth in the sleigh. Shivering with fear under a blanket of fur as a stranger came to my bed – a silent stranger, but for that sad, low moan and the soft breath of slumber.

My own breathing comes hard and frantic as my mind races over parts of my body. Nothing hurts. Nothing feels any different, really. I'm warm and comfortable, more so than I've ever been in my life.

Could Peeta have…done it…and I didn't know? Could anyone be that gentle? Could he have…had me while I was asleep – or could the hot chocolate have been drugged? I was scared last night – terrified, even. Could I have blacked out during the act – or forgotten it all, in the shock? I've heard of things like that happening before. Mom's treated girls who've gone through it. Cray's girls, mostly, who forget what happened to them till they see the blood and bruises on their bodies.

I tug up my nightgown frantically. The little lace-trimmed shorts are still as they were when I put them on yesterday afternoon. There's no blood, on my thighs or on the fabric. Either Peeta wanted me awake or…maybe he didn't want me at all. Maybe I'd been right all along. Or maybe I'd imagined the whole thing, and no one came to my bed last night.

I lower the skirt of my nightgown again and turn to look at the pillows on the opposite side of the bed. If there had ever been the indent of a head, it's since been carefully smoothed away – and any imprint of a body from the blankets as well. When I woke, they were nestled around me like a cocoon, as though I was the only person in the bed. Lavinia had tucked me in before she left last night, pulling the blankets up to my chin; I remember that for certain. But I don't remember her tucking the blankets so snugly against my back, as they were when I woke.

My bladder twinges again; my panic isn't doing it any favors. There's a door to the left of the fireplace; I recall Lavinia going through it last night to get a warm washcloth. Hopeful, I pad across the fur rug to open the door and suck in my breath at the sight of the room beyond. In astonishment, but also because I feel like I've been plunged underwater.

The bathroom, for so it is, has a floor of earthy gray stone and walls of a drowned, deep-water blue, so skillfully painted that they appear to be liquid. As though a hand placed on the wall would sink, at least to the wrist, beneath its fluid surface. Straight ahead, beneath a window twice as broad as the span of my arms, is the toilet and, on the wall to its right, a tall, round-bowled sink. Both are made of some sleek silvery-blue material and simple enough in construction, albeit a hundred times finer than our crude facilities in the Seam. Next to the sink is a closed door that must lead to the hallway.

I'm momentarily horrified at the idea of such large, prominent windows in the bathroom – they take up nearly all of the north wall and half of the east – till I realize there's no one out here to see. The room stands at tree level, and no one lives in the woods but us. Still, I tug the curtains – they're filmy and pearlescent gray, almost cloudlike – closed before using the toilet.

Built into the corner of the room to the left of the toilet is an enormous round bathtub, big enough for two or even three people to use at once. The bowl of the tub is made of wild rock – like my fireplace, only polished smooth – and the square surround is painted with tiny fish and water plants in breathtaking detail, with katniss leaves – and blooms – spilling across the ledge at the top. As I look at the tub, I can feel the slick brush of water weeds against my calves and the playful nips of the painted minnows at my toes. The katniss plants are so superbly depicted, it seems you could tangle your fingers in their slender spikes as you reclined.

Bathing in this tub – you could very nearly swim in it, broad as it is – would be like soaking in a hidden pool in the woods. Except, of course, the tub has a water tap – or rather, two of them. One for hot water, one for cold. I try to imagine having enough hot water to fill this tub and fail miserably. It would take four times the amount of water I bathed in last night, and by the time the last of it was boiled, the first would be cold.

Adjacent to the tub – taking up almost a third of the large room – is something I can't identify and so approach cautiously. If this was a Merchant house, it might be a shower, but it's nothing like the shower in Madge's house. Built of the same wild rock as the tub, it looks like a cave – a roofless, rectangular cave – with overlapping panels of cloudy, watery blue glass across its mouth. I carefully slide one panel open and peer inside.

It is a cave. A cave with a floor like sand, pleasingly rough against my callused feet, that slopes to a silver-screened drain in the center. To either side of me are craggy walls of rock, haphazardly piled to leave all manner of ridges and hollows, and straight ahead, at about the level of my thighs, is an outcropping; a primitive bench, really, also made of rock, albeit smoothed for comfort, like the tub. Above the bench is yet another large window, spanning the length of the strange cave-room, with a broad ledge that holds an assortment of slim plastic bottles.

Curious, I step inside for a closer look at the ledge's strange contents. They're soaps; Capitol-crafted liquid soaps for face and hair and body. The cave is a shower.

I look around me in surprise. There are no taps, no spouts, no buttons or knobs in sight; the patch of ceiling above has a vent, nothing more. There's no way to get water out of the rocks, nor any place for it to come from. And yet, that's clearly what this strange room is used for. The floor is damp beneath my bare feet, and I stretch out a hand to one rock wall to find it wet as well. Someone showered here recently.

Peeta.

I should have known at once. The faint lingering scent of fine soap – honey and cream and cloves, rich and comforting – it's part of his personal smell. I think of his hand on the rock wall, like mine, as he stands here, naked, and I tremble with something that isn't quite fear.

I have next to no experience with naked men. Glimpses from the Games, of course, though I'm quick to cover Prim's eyes and turn away myself at the slightest warning, and Mom's patients, now and again, are undressed entirely for treatment. In that respect, Prim's far more mature than I am. She once helped patch up a miner with a thigh wound that cut perilously close to his groin. I don't know which was more unsettling: the ragged, bloody gash in his flesh or the sight of my little sister nimbly stitching it closed, the back of her small hand practically brushing his genitals.

I have no experience whatsoever with fit and healthy naked young men, let alone living under the same roof as one, and my cheeks burn at the thought of it. I've seen Peeta in his wrestling uniform and shirtless in the Tribute Parade; the rest is not difficult to fill in. The firm curve of his backside, the narrow dip of his hips…

I duck out of the cave-shower, splash my hot face at the sink, and go quickly back to my room. I notice now what I had missed earlier: an assortment of clothing – none of which came from my foraging bag – has been laid out for me, draped over the rack in front of the fireplace. There's a long green-and-gray plaid skirt of heavy wool, paired with soft gray tights. A pair of corduroy trousers, the color of strong coffee and velvety under my fingers – as I'd imagined Peeta's would be, last night in his living room.

I shake away the thought and continue my examination of the garments. There are two sweaters, one forest green and the other pebble gray, both robustly woven of hearty wool. They'll itch a little, I suspect, but be so warm that I won't care in the least. Next to them, conveniently enough, is a long-sleeved cream-colored undershirt, soft and weightless as duck down. Below the rack is a pair of stout black shoes with buckles, new but supple, with a pair of thick wool socks resting across them.

I try to guess at what my chores will be, based on these clothes. Everything is sturdy and warm; practical, really, even the skirt. Outside, then. Chopping wood, probably, and maybe mucking out Rye's stable. I don't mind working outside – I'd prefer it, even – and it looks like a beautiful winter day. Maybe I'll have a few free moments to scout the woods and get a feel for the game out here.

I find Mom's camisole, folded neatly on top of the nearest dresser, and slip that on first of all. I hardly need the undergarment, but it feels wrong, vulgar almost, putting on these fine new clothes – Merchant clothes – over my bare breasts. I dress in the corduroys, the soft undershirt, and the green sweater, reasoning that I can always take off a layer if I get too warm, and find the fit surprisingly good. Not perfect, but much closer than I expected.

Peeta would have guessed at my size when he bought the clothes yesterday. He has an artist's eye for detail, of course, but it still feels strange for him to have thought about the proportions of my body. He would've done it for Prim as well when he purchased her coat and boots, but this feels different, somehow. More intimate. I imagine Peeta holding up the corduroys, envisioning my hips in them, and frown. The trousers are about a half-size too large, but I suspect that, like Prim's coat, he did that deliberately, intending for me to gain back the weight I lost this winter. Which means that Peeta, in fact, has a very good understanding of the shape and size of my body. My heart gives a funny little stumble at the thought.

I sit at the little dressing table to tug on the socks and shoes – also an impressively close fit – and brush and rebraid my hair. It's mussed and tangled from sleep, like a mass of black cobwebs, and I shake my head at the foolishness of having left it loose all night. Having my hair brushed out by Lavinia was an unexpected treat, but I should've listened to common sense and rebraided it when she was finished. I know better than to try to be pretty.

I'm too late for breakfast, I'm sure, but I doubt Peeta will make me go hungry. Another apple would do for me; an apple and some tea – and maybe, I dare to hope, a piece of bread. I slip out of my room and into the brightly lit corridor beyond. Tomorrow, of course, I'll be making his breakfast. I wonder if he has a big appetite, and how I'll ever manage a meal on that massive stove.

The smell meets me on the stairs. Griddle cakes, frying in real butter. Cooked fruit, mouthwateringly ripe and richly spiced. Sizzling meat, seasoned and cured – sausage, I realize. And fresh bread, yeasty and baked to perfection.

My hands start to shake. I thought the bakery was the most amazing thing I'd ever smelled, but this onslaught of delicious odors is almost crippling. Hunger roars up in my belly, growling and furious. I want, so badly that my vision goes spotty.

I grasp the railing with both hands and try to collect myself. Peeta's kind – unbelievably kind and generous – but that's no reason to assume that any of that cooking food is intended for me. He'll see that I'm fed, of course, but there's no need to do it so extravagantly. I'm just a servant, after all. Bread and a little cold meat is more than enough for me – more than I've had at home for most of this winter.

But oh, that frying sausage! I can nearly taste it in the air, and it stirs an almost feral urge to grab and tear and fill my mouth.

I'll bargain, I decide, combating the urge with reason. I'm a tough trader, after all.I have little enough to trade with, and less still that anyone here would want, but Lavinia – it'll be her that's cooking, of course – is from the Capitol; she might not know the going rate for things out here. Of the few precious items I brought with me, which can I bear to part with?

Mom's dress. I don't need it, really. I know why she sent it now. You should have something pretty to wear when – he takes you to his bed. She wanted so badly for me to go to Peeta as a bride, finely dressed and gently perfumed.

I don't have a clue what Peeta wants of me, but it didn't seem to matter what I was wearing last night. I don't know who – or for that matter, if anyone – came to my bed. Really, there's no reason to hold on to a pretty dress that I'll never have occasion to wear – and the leaf green will look amazing on Lavinia, with her porcelain skin and dark red hair. It's not up to Capitol standard, but it's certainly Merchant quality. It should barter a portion of sausage, at least; maybe even one griddle cake.

I descend the last of the stairs and consider whether I'm being too hasty. I might need something later, something more vital than sausage. Maybe I should save the dress for a more pressing need.

Then I think of the Games and sponsors, of the escalating cost of gifts the longer the Games drag on. Of how what buys a full meal on day one buys a cracker on day twelve. Lavinia's from the Capitol, so she probably plays by their rules. My very best chance of trading a Merchant dress for meat is today. Right now. I step into the kitchen.

It's not Lavinia, it's Peeta. Standing over his enormous copper stove and fussing with a range full of saucepans, the sleeves of his dark blue sweater pushed to his elbows. My heart plunges into my stomach. There will be no bargain now. Peeta will have no interest whatsoever in my mother's clothing, and besides, it would take far more than a twenty-year-old Merchant dress, much-mended and made-over, to buy a plate of what he's preparing.

I must make some sound of dismay, because Peeta suddenly looks up from his work, spies me in the kitchen doorway, and beams. "Good morning, Katniss," he says cheerfully. "I see the clothes fit." He blushes a little at that. "I hope you didn't feel you had to wear the ones Lavinia put out; there are more in the dresser."

Before I can wrap my mind around more clothes in the dresser, he asks, "Did you sleep all right?"

"Yes," I tell him, though I narrowly bite back adding, Weren't you there? His expression gives nothing away; he looks, more than anything, delighted. Certainly neither guilty nor nervous. Could he have been the stranger in my bed? Could his have been the hand that drew back my blankets, then drew them up again to cover us both? Was it his warm weight on the mattress opposite me? Surely this radiant young man can't be the person who made that strange sad sound.

"I'm sorry I slept so late," I say, never mind he told me I could. "I'll be up tomorrow in time to make breakfast." I come a little closer to see the contents of the stove – to see what he expects of me, I tell myself, nothing more – and my stomach gives a silent, painful howl.

Apple cider and cinnamon sticks simmer cozily in one saucepan at the back of the range; another holds peach slices, bubbling in syrup over a low flame. A large skillet stands empty, slick with melted butter, with a tall stack of griddle cakes on a platter beside it, and the small skillet on the burner opposite is filled with scrambled eggs, fluffy and sprinkled with herbs. At home, we scramble our eggs – any eggs I can scavenge, however tiny – to make them stretch farther. These will be proper chicken eggs, scrambled simply for the pleasure of it. Yet another skillet holds the sausages I want so badly, brown and crisp and and sizzling lazily in their own juices. Down the counter are two perfect round loaves of bread, golden and cooling.

I lick my dry lips and look up to see Peeta frowning slightly at me. I wonder if he's mad at me for getting up late or for nosing around his stove like a Seam urchin. Except he doesn't quite look angry. "Um…do you want me to serve you?" I offer, a little helplessly. It's the only thing I can think of, seeing as he's prepared a week's worth of food.

His frown clears, like a cloud passing the sun. He chuckles gently. "No, I'll do that," he says, smiling. He pulls out a chair for me at the table, directly in front of a yet another platter of griddle cakes. I sit as directed and press my palms hard against the underside of the table, fighting the urge to snatch one up. Not for me, not for me, not for me, my mind chants frantically.

And Peeta does take the platter away, carrying it over to the stove. "I was actually going to bring you up a tray in another minute or two," he says over his shoulder. "I figured you might be tired after yesterday."

I watch him ladle peaches over the mountain of griddle cakes and scoop a heaping pile of eggs onto the emptiest side of the platter. From the sizzling skillet he takes three sausages, then pauses a moment before adding a fourth to the platter as well. He carries the platter back to the table and splashes over the peaches with cream from a little ceramic pitcher, then places it back in front of me. "What would you like to drink?" he asks.

I don't know how I didn't see it before. The tall glass and mug above the plate, the knife and fork and spoon to either side. I'm poor, not primitive. This was a place setting to begin with.

I stare down at what I had mistaken for a serving platter. It holds more food than my entire family would eat in a day. And Peeta's just given it to me casually, as though this sort of thing is too regular an occurrence to bear remarking on.

"I've made coffee," he explains, gesturing at the silver stovepot on the table, an elegant cousin to what my mother uses at home. "I never liked it much before," he admits, "but this makes a really good cup." Next to the coffee pot stand a small peppermill and a salt shaker, the tiny bottle containing more salt than my family's had in a month. I realize I won't need either. It feels almost offensive, adding to something Peeta clearly took great pains to prepare.

"Otherwise, I've got cider," he goes on. "I keep it simmering most days – but I can make tea if you'd rather have that. There's milk and orange juice too…or I could make hot chocolate again?"

I'd hoped for tea at the most, and would've been content with a cup of water. "Um…cider?" I say weakly.

Peeta smiles. He takes the mug – the same bowl-sized one he filled with hot chocolate last night – ladles in three scoops of the simmering cider, and sets it to the right of my plate. "Do you mind if I eat with you?" he asks.

I have decent table manners, thanks to Mom. Does he think I'm embarrassed have him watch me eat – or will I embarrass him? "When else would you eat?" I ask in reply.

He shrugs good-naturedly. "When you're done," he says.

I frown. This is all backwards. Peeta serving me food, asking if I mind him eating with me. "Eat now," I tell him, a little too sharply. "I'd feel stupid eating with you just waiting around."

Peeta nods and goes to make himself a plate, but my restraint is exhausted. I pick up the fork and devour, all the while forcing myself to go slowly, to chew every bite thoroughly before swallowing, to not pick up the food with my fingers, no matter how hungry I am or how badly I want to. The cream-drenched peaches are tender, simmered with brown sugar and nutmeg; the griddle cakes hearty and filled with oats and finely chopped nuts. The sausages – real pork sausage, perfectly fried and slightly sweet – taste of sage and apple. The eggs are airy and lightly seasoned with pepper and thyme, the perfect counterpart to the other rich flavors.

Peeta sits in the chair nearest me, but I hardly notice. My throat is sore all of a sudden; I wonder if I caught a cold in the sleigh last night. I take a long drink of cider, hoping the heat and cinnamon will soothe it. I have a sniffle too – from the steaming hot food, I assume. I stare down at my plate as I eagerly eat bite after bite after bite.

I don't realize what's happening to me until the tear strikes the edge of my plate with a ping.

Peeta's out of his chair and crouched beside mine before I'm even aware that he moved. "Katniss, what's wrong?" he asks gently, his kind face concerned. "Is something wrong with the food?"

"You…fed me," I choke, stupidly, because there are too many words to say what I really mean. I was prepared to trade one of my mother's last gifts for a few bites of this food, and you gave me this huge plateful without me even having to ask.

"I said I would," he says softly. His lips are smiling, but his bright eyes are sad.

"You said…you said you'd 'take care of me,'" I recall, sniffling noisily. For some reason, it's imperative that he understand this – that, in fact, he'd promised very little.

He takes a handkerchief from his left hip pocket and offers it to me. "I also said you'd have the very best I can give you," he reminds me. "I meant to ask if this –" he gestures up at my plate – "was good enough. I hoped it would be, but…your reaction has me a little confused."

I silently take the handkerchief from him and notice for the first time the scrap of red cloth tied around his left wrist. His sleeves are still pushed up from cooking, or I'd never have seen it. I recognize it immediately; I just didn't expect to see it here.

It's his district token. Nobody knows where it came from or what it means, just that it means a lot to Peeta. In the arena, especially at night, he would tug back the cuff of his jacket and press his lips against the fabric, almost desperately. Wishing, hoping, longing; no one was quite sure, but, regardless, he did it fiercely. It would've been filthy by the end, muddied and stained with blood and body soil, but he never took it off. People wondered if it was something to do with the girl he loved, but I figured it was from his father. After all, if this girl didn't know he was alive, why would she have given him a token to take into the arena?

I wipe my nose with Peeta's handkerchief and redirect my eyes to his face. He's still waiting for a reply, his expression tentatively hopeful. "It's – more than good enough," I tell him, and his smile is so wide it makes my chest hurt. "It's too good," I elaborate, both from guilt and the need to alleviate that strange pressure around my heart. "Too much."

"Too much food?" Peeta puzzles, eyeing my half-devoured plate. I understand his confusion, a little. He knows my family's been living on almost nothing, and if the portion is generous, it's unlikely a starving person would complain.

"Too much for me," I explain. "I'm just…you could've just given me an apple or something."

His sweet, gentle eyes turn suddenly intense, almost angry. "You're not 'just' anything, Katniss," he says hotly. "And as for the rest: I've been looking forward to this morning for a long time. Nothing in the world could've persuaded me to offer you a mere apple as a meal."

And then, all at once, his fire is gone. "Unless…" he says, blushing sheepishly, "unless that's what you really wanted. If that's what you asked me for."

I wonder if he has any idea how ridiculous he sounds. Is his feast good enough for me? He'd never give me an apple as a meal, unless it'swhat I asked him for? It's like the invent-as-you-go reasoning of a small child, except it doesn't feel silly. I feel strangely warm at his words, and blame it on the layers of clothing and the rich food in my belly. "It's good," I reassure him. "It's – perfect."

He smiles, looking relieved, and gets back into his chair. The movement is a little stilted; I wonder if crouching is painful with his prosthesis.

We continue our meal in silence, but the brief pause gave my brain and belly time to communicate. I realize I'm full, almost uncomfortably so, and set down my fork. Peeta looks up at the sound, and I distract myself with my mug, taking slow sips of the spicy-sweet cider to soothe my stretched stomach – and draw my vision away from his curious frown.

"Would you like more of anything?" he asks.

I glance between him and the partial plate of food still in front of me. "I'm full, I think," I tell him. "But thanks."

He reaches over – I assume to take my plate away or maybe to refill it, despite what I said – but instead his hand carefully encircles my wrist. Spanning it, I realize. I know his hands are big, but his thumb and forefinger meet too easily – overlap one another – around the stark, prominent bones.

Peeta's thumb traces a tendon in my wrist, making me shiver. His brow furrows worriedly. "Please eat more," he says, almost pleading. "Have all you want."

"Why, so you can eat me in a month when I'm fattened up?" I retort. I say it snidely, but it comes out sounding so absurd that I immediately laugh at myself. Peeta stares at me for a moment, startled, then laughs too. The sound of his laughter, coupled with the gentle grasp of his hand around my wrist, makes the strange, startling warmth flare up inside me once more.

The laughter must shake my stomach up a bit, because I manage to clean my plate after all. I'm extremely full – fuller than I think I've ever been in my life – but not painfully so. I get up, collecting my dishes to take to the sink, but Peeta's already on his feet, taking them from me. "I'll do that," he assures me with a smile.

My confusion increases yet again. I didn't cook, I didn't serve, and he doesn't want me to clean up. "What would you like me to do, then?" I ask, more than a little exasperation creeping into my voice.

I know there must be no end of cleaning to do in a house like this, but Peeta seems in no hurry to assign my tasks. In fact, he's grinning like a child given a long-awaited toy. "Do you skate, Katniss?" he asks. His voice is downright playful.

"W-what?" I sputter.

"The ice is thick enough for the sleigh," he explains, "so I imagine it's perfect for skating. I know you go to the lake, but I didn't know about…during the winter."

My brain hurtles past skating and sleighs to I know you go to the lake. "Wait…how do you know that?" I rasp.

"Well, you sell fish and ducks at the Hob," he reminds me with a crooked smile. "And…" His eyes drop to the dishes in his hands. "I've seen you a few times," he admits. "Gathering plants. Hunting and fishing. Swimming, once."

I look away, my cheeks hot. Of course. Peeta lives on the other side of the lake, too far to see anything from his house, but coming and going – especially during warmer weather – he'd follow the lakeshore back to town. He might've gone right by me with his pony and cart, a dozen times or more. How had I never seen or heard him?

This is weighty information, and for a moment I can't breathe. Peeta could turn me in to the Peacekeepers for this. At the very least, I'd get a lashing; I could even be executed. But then, if he wants me dead, he's going about it a rather expensive way.

I feel his eyes on me again and force myself to meet them. "Who would I tell, Katniss?" he asks softly. "And why? You fed a lot of families, including your own. And…" He gives me a small, sad smile. "You seemed happy out there," he says.

Once again, I'm shamed by his kindness – and how well he knows me. I am happiest in the woods – and at the lake – but I thought only Gale and Prim knew that. Somehow, it doesn't irk me that Peeta knows this too. He could've used the knowledge against me, but instead he brought me to live in this perfect house in the woods, knowing – or at least, guessing – that I could be happy here.

"Will – with you being gone – will anyone still do that?" he asks. "The hunting and gathering, I mean."

"Gale will," I tell him. "But he works in the mines now, so he'll have less time, and no one to help him."

Peeta nods absently. He looks contemplative, almost distant, as though he's working out a tricky puzzle in his mind, then his vision abruptly clears and focuses on me once more. "So, is that a yes or no to skating?" he wonders, grinning.

"I don't have skates," I point out needlessly.

His grin broadens. "Yes, you do," he corrects. "Come here."

He ushers me, almost giddily, out to the foyer, where he picks up a strange pair of what look like sandals from the floor next to my hunting boots. He hands them to me, still grinning, and I turn them over in my hands, fascinated. I've never had skates; never even seen a pair before, let alone held one. They're simply constructed: a blunt silver blade, curling up at one end, anchored beneath a foot-shaped platform, with wide leather straps at the toe and ankle. I could wear them with almost any kind of shoe, and the size wouldn't matter overmuch, as long as the straps were snug.

Peeta bought me skates. He's sending me to play in the snow like a child. I haven't done that since Dad died. I think of us pretend-skating, scooting across the ice in our worn old boots, a mere week before the explosion that took his life – and wonder if I can bear it.

I gorged myself at breakfast. I need the exertion. And I told Peeta I'd do whatever he wants. "Thanks," I manage, even chasing up a tight smile for him. "These'll fit over my boots, right?"

Peeta looks uncomfortable, nervous even, and I know it's not about the boots, which will clearly work with the skates. "Um…if you want…" he says, and his voice is a little unsteady, "I have…well, a few other things you can wear outside."

I follow him into the living room, and my mouth falls open at what waits for me there. Warming in front of the fire is a pair of boots that could be a twin to Prim's. Fawn-colored suede, lacing to the knees, lined with fleece. A Merchant girl's dream of new boots; the very best to be found in the district.

The coat next to them, however, carefully draped over its warming rack, has never seen its like in Twelve before. The style is somewhat like Prim's; the coat is made of fine wool and cut long, to cover my hips. But there the similarity ends.

It's red – bright, deep red, like strawberries and new blood – with buttons of polished bone and vines of embroidered white flowers and deep green leaves on either side of them, trailing from collar to hem. Katniss flowers and arrowhead leaves. Again, always, katniss.

And fur. The coat has a voluminous hood, trimmed and lined with thick white fur. A quick glance reveals that the hem and cuffs are fur-trimmed too. I can't stop my fingers from reaching out, from stroking it eagerly, and I moan a little at the sleek softness.

I catch up one sleeve, meaning only to touch the cuff, and find it far heavier than I would've expected, even for a garment of good wool. Frowning, I crouch down for a closer look and confirm what I almost can't believe. It's not just the hood: the entire coat is lined with white fur. A fur I know well, though I've never touched it with my bare hand.

I wouldn't be much of a hunter if I didn't recognize it.

"Peeta," I choke. He doesn't reply, and I don't look up to see his face. "This is your bear's fur," I say weakly.

"It was a big bear," he answers. His voice is tight and strange.

I look up at him, frowning. His cheekbones are stained painfully dark, but not with embarrassment. There's something he's not telling me, something he's almost afraid I might understand.

He didn't buy this coat in town yesterday. He couldn't have ordered it from the Capitol yesterday. And it's unlikely that when his stylist cut up the bear's pelt to make his coat, she was intending to save any of it for a future use. Which means this coat was made the same time as his, or very near. He'll have had it since the Victory Tour, at the very least – a month or more. And with its bone buttons – are they from the bear as well? – and my namesake embroidered down the front, it couldn't have been made for anyone else.

Why did you have a coat made for me, with your own hard-won fur? I want to demand. Were you already planning for this on your Victory Tour – for our bargain, for me living in your house? And most perplexing of all: Why am I here? Why did you want me? Why do you shower me with rich food and gifts and comfort, when I am here to serve you?

His eyes darken a little. I wonder if he can read my thoughts in my eyes, and give voice to none of them. "Peeta, this is too much," I say instead.

"Do you like it?" he asks. His voice is still strange, tight and edged. Not angry, not disappointed, but strained; like a man reaching the limits of his endurance.

"Yes," I whisper. My fingers are still greedily, irrationally curled around one fur cuff, as though if I let go, this fairytale coat might vanish into thin air or, at the very least, be taken away from me.

Peeta visibly relaxes, melting back into himself. "Then it's not too much," he says, his lips curving up again in his familiar smile. "It's exactly right." He pauses a moment before adding, "Although…it's not practical, I suppose –"

"It's perfect," I assure him, for the second time this morning, as I get to my feet.

Peeta gestures for me to turn around and helps me into the coat. I sigh gustily as the heft of it settles at my shoulders, caught up in the magnificent feel of the lining. Thick silky fur, dense and heavy and warm from the fire; it's exactly like being inside Peeta's bearskin again, only without Peeta. The realization is at once delicious and slightly hollow.

My body is covered by the sweater and corduroys, of course, but my wrists and neck are exposed to the coat's lining, and the feel of the white bear's fur on those tiny patches of bare skin is almost intoxicating. A mad part of me wants to shed a layer of clothes, maybe all of them; to feel the fur against my naked body. My cheeks burn at the thought and I brush it aside in favor of a deeper emotion: sheer, almost exhausting relief that the coat fits.

Like the clothing, the coat is slightly large on me; a full size, at least. A perfect fit during the cold months, when I might be wearing any number of layers underneath. If it had been too small – this decadent dream of a coat, made just for me – I think my heart would have broken. Not for my loss, but for Peeta's. The boy who doesn't know me – who can't know me – who'd barely spoken a word to me in his life before yesterday…who had a coat made for me, lined with the most precious fur in Panem and embellished with the blossoms of the common water plant that gave me my name.

He turns me around again and smiles broadly, my relief mirrored in his eyes. "May I?" he asks, demonstratively tugging the coat's edges together. I shrug, and he begins slotting the bone buttons. I squirm a little as his strong, deft fingers inch purposefully down my body, coaxing buttons through snugly stitched buttonholes that have never been used before, but the coat is too thick for me to feel more than a fleeting pressure at his touch.

When he's finished encasing me from neck to knees in cherry red wool and white bear's fur, he reaches behind my neck with both hands and raises the hood, draping it over my head with a playful smile. It's deep and roomy and almost unbelievably warm; I can feel fur against my ears and cheeks and half want to sink into the fireside armchair, to burrow into this coat and sleep away the winter like a bear.

"Good enough?" Peeta asks hopefully, his eyes dancing.

"Too good," I reply, but I can't resist returning his smile.

I do sit for a little then, because Peeta wants to help me on with the new boots as well. My leather hunting boots have contoured to my feet and calves after so many wearings, but there's something even better about having laces – to say nothing of the plush fleece lining, reaching from my toes to just below my knees. And they're a decent fit on top of it. I can well imagine how Prim must've felt when the baker first laced her into her new boots. No wonder she had flown out of the house to show Vick and Rory. As indolent as I feel in the coat, with these boots on, I can scarcely sit still. Suddenly, skating seems very much the order of the day.

Peeta produces three more gifts, not nearly so expensive as the coat but equally warm and beautiful. A pair of butter-soft brown leather gloves, lined with fur – rabbit this time – and a scarf and stocking cap, both of an earthy evergreen shade, trimmed with tiny embroidered pinecones and far softer than anything knitted can possibly be. It must be wool; it looks like wool, and yet it feels like fur. Thoroughly confused, I run a few inches of the scarf between my fingers and give Peeta an inquiring look.

"Do you like it?" he asks, smiling. "It's rabbit hair."

"Hair?" I frown. Rabbits have fur; sleek, soft fur, like what lines my new gloves. I've skinned enough of them to know.

"It's a special long-haired rabbit," he explains. "They shear them like sheep and blend the hair with wool. Portia, my stylist, has a coat made of it – soft, like fur, but much lighter."

I push back the hood for a moment to pull on the downy cap and adjust my braid – the hood drapes perfectly in the back to accommodate it – then raise the hood again and wrap the scarf around my neck. I'm so warm it's ridiculous. "Are you sure about this?" I ask Peeta, frowning, as I pull on the fur-lined gloves. Shouldn't I be doing the dishes? I add silently. Or your laundry, or –

"Entirely sure," he replies, smiling. He retrieves the skates from the floor, where I set them when I put on the coat, and presses them into my hands. "Go on; enjoy yourself," he urges me. "I'll give you a tour when you get back."

Since Dad died, I've done precious few things just for the pleasure of it, and on the whole, I haven't missed them. But standing in Peeta's living room, bundled head-to-foot in warm luxury, gazing out his windows at the frozen lake with a pair of skates in my hands, I positively ache to be out there.

Peeta doesn't have to prompt me again. I burst out the front door, only to pause on the stone steps to breathe deeply of the sharp, crystalline air. There's no taint of coal or soot, only the resin of pines and a tickle of woodsmoke amid the pure, sweet cold. Curious, I stick my tongue out a little, tasting the air like a snake. It's nothing like Twelve. We left the district last night…did we travel farther than I thought? Is this the same lake I used to harvest from when I crept beneath the perimeter fence?

I scurry down the steps into the blue-white snow; it shimmers, diamond-like, in the late morning sun. The drifts are deep, up to my knees and higher, but someone's cleared a path to the edge of the lake, maybe thirty feet ahead. A little bench stands there, crafted of wrought iron with wood slats forming the seat. Another overlook for this beautiful scene – and practical for my purposes too.

I sit on the bench and carefully strap the skates onto my new boots, eager and confident. I'm agile and coordinated; not graceful, maybe, but certainly capable of maintaining my balance even on the most precarious of tree limbs. So when I stand up for the first time, balanced on the blades, and my legs wobble like a newborn kid's, I hardly know what to think – and that's on snow-packed ground, not ice.

I shift my weight a little to stabilize myself, scowling. The entire weight of my body, however slight, is balanced on the equivalent of two hunting knifes with elaborately curled tips. Who does this, let alone for fun?

I think again of my dad, of "skating" together in our boots. He would've loved to try out proper skates and would've given anything for me to have some, let alone this finely crafted pair. He'd joked about it the winter before he died; told me he wanted to start saving up to get me "real" skates, only how on earth could he buy them without word getting to the Peacekeepers? There's nowhere to skate inside the fence; they'd have been on to us at once.

To me, Dad's talk of ice skates was yet another fairy tale, like log houses and sleighs and enormous white bears. And now all of that is a part of my daily life, as ordinary as coal dust and poverty and roasted squirrel were yesterday.

I step gingerly up to the lake. If Dad were here, he'd be overjoyed. Ice skates; shimmering pure snow as far as the eye can see; a rich, hearty breakfast; this dream of a red coat, lined with fur. I was young when he died, but I know this is everything he wanted for me. Food, warmth – freedom, after a fashion – and happiness. For his sake, I bite back my scowl and step onto the ice, resolving to enjoy myself, no matter how many bones I break.

I catch my breath as the blades touch ice and automatically reach out for Dad's hand. He's not there, of course; no one is. Embarrassed, I keep that arm outstretched and extend the other as well, as a pretense of keeping my balance – and, surprisingly enough, it seems to help a little. I scoot one foot forward with a soft hiss, then the other. It's a stilted, wind-up toy sort of movement – my joints are locked, save at the hips – but it's working. I scoot ahead a few more careful steps before my right foot slips wildly ahead and I sprawl onto the ice in a graceless heap.

I curse Dad, ice, winter in general, and Peeta Mellark. I wonder if Peeta might've bought the skates purely for his own amusement: to watch Katniss Everdeen fall down, over and over again. Both the kitchen and the living room face the lake, after all: he could sit beside his stone fireplace with his coffee, warm and cozy, and laugh himself hysterical. I clamber to my feet again and glower back at the house just in case, letting him know that I don't find this funny at all.

But I do. The third time I fall, I roll onto my back on the ice, laughing hard. I'm exactly like a goat kid trying out its legs for the first time. And thankfully, Dad taught me how to fall without hurting myself – overmuch, at least – to relax into a fall, not to tense up. I might still bruise a little, but I won't have the full body aches that come from hitting the ground with rigid muscles – and thanks to Peeta's thick clothing, I'm well cushioned. I'll have a bruise or two on my knees, probably, but little else.

With a sigh, I let my head sink back into the fur-lined hood and gaze up at the sky. It's a pale wintry blue today, bright and clear. A chickadee gives its buzzing call from nearby; I peer over to see it perched on the back of the bench and smile, whistling back to it. A bruise on my knee is little enough to pay for this moment.

I climb back up again and hear Dad's voice in my head, a snatch of memory. Not chiding, but merry: Bend your knees, catkin. You're waddling like a duck.

I try it and am immediately surprised by the increase in stability and the ease of moving forward. I can slide my feet fluidly forward, one after the other, instead of stiffly scooting from the hip and having to consciously, clumsily shift my weight on each step. I probably still look ridiculous, but I feel much more graceful. It's a bit like dancing, I realize. No one's good at it to begin with, but you find ways to have fun at it until you get better.

Steadier now, I try skating in one big, lopsided circle. Sustaining the bent knees pulls on my thighs, but in a good way. They work a little harder like this; over time, skating would make them grow stronger.

I wonder if Peeta skates – living, as he does, a stone's throw from the lake – and just as quickly answer myself: of course not! Skating requires strong, agile knees and ankles. Peeta was able to keep his knee, but everything below it is prosthesis now. They've never shown it close up on television, and I wonder what the ankle is like. If it's rigid, he could balance on it and propel himself with his other leg. If it's flexible, like a real joint, he'd have a better range of motion, but less stability. Maybe skating would be good for him.

I blush at the presumption. Who am I, to make those kinds of judgments? After all, Peeta's done well for himself in his recovery. He's gained back the weight he lost in the arena, and it's clearly the firm contour of muscle, not the fleshy result of a rich man's indulgences. For some reason, that makes me blush even harder.

By my third loop of the circle, I'm moving faster and it's starting to feel good. The soft whooshes of the blades against the ice, the crisp air kissing across my cheekbones as I pick up speed. I'm exerting myself purely for pleasure – not for survival, as the Capitol's tried to reduce us to. My stomach aches from a generous meal, not from hunger; my thighs from skating, not from running and climbing in pursuit of my next meal. Peeta's done more than save my life, and Mom's and Prim's; he's defied the Capitol in the gentlest, most generous way possible. The thought makes me smile. Dad would've liked that too.

I skate loops until I lose count, then switch to long straight lines, running the length of Peeta's house. On my first pass I notice a wooden outbuilding just off the north end of the house, set back a little into the woods. The stable, I imagine, though a building that size – it looks to have a second floor, even – could house a Seam family of at least six.

The sun climbs higher, and I realize it must be close to noon already. I woke much later than usual today; Peeta will probably want his lunch soon. I should go back inside, tidy myself up, ask what he wants to eat.

I skate over to the bench, sit once more, and reluctantly loosen the straps. I'm genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I wonder if I asked – if I was up very early and got my work done well and quickly – if Peeta would let me go skating again.

I leave the bench and promptly tumble face-first into a snowdrift. My feet want to slide, not step; for a moment they don't quite remember how, and I laugh like a child at how ridiculous I must look.

A deep rumbling sound startles me – an echo of my laughter, but altered somehow; throatier – and I look up, expecting Peeta, to see a stranger: a bearded man in a heavy parka, standing a few feet away in the direction of the outbuilding. He points at me, then at the house. I realize he must be the other Avox and scramble through the drifts over to him, the skates dangling from my hand. "What was that?" I ask.

I understand what Peeta meant about both of the Avoxes being "distinctive" in appearance. The man isn't as beautiful as Lavinia – I doubt anyone is, anywhere – but he's still quite striking. Tall – at least a head taller than Peeta – and burly; he's built a bit like Peeta's father. His eyes are blue and ordinary enough, as is the sandy hair curling out from beneath his stocking cap, but the thick beard covering the lower half of his face is red. A bright russety shade; more Darius-red than Lavinia-red, but still: not blond, not brown, not black. Not a color I've ever seen growing out of someone's face before.

More remarkable than this, at least to me, is that he smells like my dad. That sharp, fresh scent of woods and wind and snow; the smell of a man who spends a great deal of time outdoors. For weeks after Dad died, I quietly cried myself to sleep with my face buried in his hunting jacket because it smelled like him. Before we became quite so desperately poor and had to make use of every last little scrap, that's why I wore his sweaters too.

This man smells of other things too: woodsmoke and hay and the warm musty scent of the pony, whereas Dad smelled of coal – coal fires; coal dust; the close, almost intangible odor of a hundred men sweating out their fears and breathing in each other's sorrows in a lightless mine shaft. But the association is too strong. Already I like this strange red-bearded man – trust him, even – and I don't even know his name.

He touches his mouth lightly with a leather-gloved hand – I guess that's shorthand for I'm an Avox or maybe I can't speak; I nod in reply – and he gestures more deliberately this time. At me, then at the house.

I follow the direction of his hand to see Peeta standing on the porch, coatless, his sleeves still pushed to his elbows, watching us and smiling. My lips curl up in an answering smile of their own volition, and I give a little wave, which he returns.

When I turn back, the Avox is holding a wood-framed slate, about the size of a notebook, and writing on it with a sharpened piece of chalk. He turns it around for me to read.

You happy makes him happy.

Something strange stirs in my chest. I look up at the Avox questioningly; he nods, confirming what he's written, and I glance back at Peeta again. Still smiling at me – at us, I correct myself – he looks content, even at this distance. As though he'd be perfectly happy to stand on his porch for the rest of the day and watch his servants cavort in the snow. I wonder how long he's been out here already. If he saw me fall and curse and laugh – and slowly begin to master the skates. I'm surprised by how badly I want him to have seen that, and tell myself I just want to justify his faith in me. He may be wealthy, but the skates can't have been cheap. I'd hate to be a poor return on his investment.

It's different from when I thought he was sitting inside, watching me for his own entertainment. Something about him coming out here, the quiet happiness in what he's looking at – even if it's simply the beauty of this winter morning – takes my breath away.

The Avox gives another rumbling chuckle, and I turn back to him. He's rubbed out the message on his slate; it now features an arrow pointing up toward his face and the name Pollux.

"Nice to meet you, Pollux," I tell him. "I'm Katniss."

He grins. I know, he writes, underneath his name. Like Lavinia, he seems aware of my purpose for being here – far more so than I am – and slightly amused by it. It rankles a little – I hate the idea of anyone laughing at me, for whatever reason – but there's something gentle in their humor. As though it's the situation that's funny, not me. I wonder what Peeta told them before I came.

Pollux wipes the slate clean again with the heel of his hand and writes another message. Want to see the stable?

Of course. He's probably supposed to train me; show me my outdoor duties. No wonder he came along when he did: I'm finished with my recreation, now it's time for chores. "Sure," I tell him. "But shouldn't I change first?" Peeta's coat is wonderfully warm, but it's too costly, too precious, too beautiful. A few days of mucking out stables and chopping wood would ruin it. No wonder he'd apologized for it not being "practical."

"I can get my hunting jacket," I tell Pollux. And my boots, I add mentally, thinking of pony dung staining the fawn-colored suede of my pretty new boots. "It'll only take a minute."

He frowns quizzically and scribbles another message: Just to look. He points at the stable, then back at the slate.

Just to look at the stable…? Maybe he simply means to show me around today, so I can start work tomorrow. Or maybe I'm meant to work in the house with Lavinia, but I still need to know about the stable and outdoor things.

Pollux holds out the slate again. This time it reads Won't get dirty. He makes an all-encompassing gesture at my fine clothes, giving me a small smile.

"Okay," I concede, and follow him to the outbuilding.

The stable is about as wide as my family's house and half again as tall, with a concrete floor, electric lights, and a small wood-burning stove that, if the temperature in here is any indication, is very effective at keeping the place warm. Straight ahead of us is the sleigh, polished to gleaming, and beyond that is something large – presumably Peeta's cart – covered with a tarp for the winter. Opposite the sleigh are three stalls; the rear two stand open and empty, and at a cheery whistle from Pollux, Rye's long white face appears over the gate of the first.

Pollux ruffles the pony's pale mane with one hand and waves me over with the other – clearly, encouraging me to come and say hello – but I hang back a little, uncertain. Rye is a grazer, a gentle beast of burden. I'm a meat-eater. A hunter. Danger. While I can never again think of this docile creature as a potential meal, still I wonder if he scents that primal hunger. If he can smell blood on me.

To my surprise, as I approach, Rye stretches out his neck, lipping at the right hip pocket of my coat. I'm reminded of his playful persistence last night, begging Peeta for treats, and shake my head with a chuckle. "I don't have anything," I tell him, reaching demonstratively into my fur-lined pocket, only to bring out a napkin wrapped around a small wedge of apple and a piece of carrot.

Peeta. Again, always, Peeta. He would have guessed I'd end up in the stable this morning and accordingly sent treats for Rye. I can't believe I didn't feel them in my pocket with all the falls I took this morning.

Rye reaches hopefully for the food, his neck stretched almost flat with eagerness, but I dip back a step and, no longer able to resist, take a bite of the carrot myself. I haven't had one in over two months, and that had been a shriveled thing from the grocer's trash bin, chopped into weak rabbit broth to stretch further. This is fresh, firm and crisp and sweet.

The pony tosses his head impatiently; laughing, I step forward again, holding out my palm the way Prim showed me, and let him take the apple and what remains of the carrot. When he's finished, I dare a hand to his cheek, spreading my fingers to cup the broad bone. I rarely touch living animals, much less with affection, and never any quite so big. I can feel the heat of his body, even through the leather and fur of my glove, and I inch my thumb a little higher to stroke the hollow beneath his large, luminous eye.

I'm poised to dash back or withdraw my hand if need be – even a grazer's teeth can do serious damage – but Rye merely nuzzles against my hand, whuffling softly. Pollux gives a throaty chuckle, and I look over to see him holding up the slate with one word written on it.

Friend.

As with Madge, the word is unexpected and brings with it a bubble of giddiness – warmth, even. I peer up at Rye, considering. I suppose it isn't the strangest thing in the world, a horse and a hunter becoming friends. I comb through his pale forelock with my gloved fingers and feel my lips curl into a smile. If I'm going to be out here for the rest of my life, I suppose a few extra friends can't hurt.

Pollux walks me around the stable, indicating the corner designated for Rye's hay and grain stores, the two empty stalls – my mind envisions chicken roosts in one, maybe a goat in the other – and the narrow stair leading to the second floor. Loft, he writes before waving me up. At the top of the stairs is a small living space, rustic but sufficient, with a small bed, table and chairs, and a cookstove. Like the stable below, it has electric lights.

"Yours?" I ask. Pollux nods.

If the stable below was mild in temperature, this room is downright cozy. Clearly intended for practicality rather than elegance; the windows to each end are hung with simple cotton drapes, and a large woven rug covers most of the floor. It's the sort of room that would have done very well for me. The sort of room I expected when I arrived here.

I follow Pollux downstairs and he shows me the workshop at the back of the stable. There's a workbench, battered from years of use long before Peeta came, empty but for a can of nails and a few pairs of rough work gloves. Hanging from the wall alongside the bench are a few basic tools: a hammer, handsaw, ax, and pruning shears, polished and sharpened and ready for use. Below those are propped a rake, two shovels, and small hand tools.

There's a garden.

I'm not aware that I spoke the thought aloud till Pollux holds up the slate again, a lengthy message on it this time: There's a lot more, but you'll have to wait till spring to see it.

He's very nearly grinning, and I can't resist returning the expression. There's no place to garden – garden properly – in the Seam. Mom grows herbs in broken old pots tucked into the warmest corners of our house, and Gale and I have made small efforts to cultivate some of our wild harvests – putting nets over the best patches of wild strawberries to keep away birds and deliberately reseeding foraged herbs near the edge of the woods whenever we can. A richer, more accessible harvest helps us all.

Pollux leads me out of the stable through the back door, and I find myself on the woods-facing side of the house. There's a chopping block to one side of the door, and the aromatic pile of neatly stacked firewood nearly covers the entire back wall of the stable. Peeta won't need me to cut more for a while, I surmise.

Between the house and the trees is an expanse of softly drifted ground, as long as the house itself and twenty or so feet wide, with lumps here and there suggesting bushes beneath the snow, and a lone skeletal tree – a fruit tree, most likely – standing at the center. This must be the garden. At the south end of it stands a little trellis, wound about with winter-browned vines, with a stone bench below. A pretty spot in spring, I imagine.

To my surprise, there are just as many windows on this side of the house as on the front. I count two for the bathroom – one over the round stone tub, the other built into the cave shower – two for my bedroom, and two for the room adjacent to mine that I haven't seen yet. Above those, tucked beneath the gabled roof, are several small windows, and below – at the main level – are six more windows, curtained and mysterious, with rooms behind them that I can only guess at. About halfway along is a set of wide stone steps, leading up to the back door.

Pollux walks me back the way we came, and I ask if there's anything I need to do before going back in the house. Rye appears to be comfortable and well fed, the stable is perfectly tidy, and there's more than a week's worth of firewood, cut and stacked behind the stable. Someone's even shoveled paths through the snow. In addition to the one I took down to the lake, there's a narrow swath circling the house and another between the house and the stable.

Pollux shakes his head with a smile, and I turn to walk back to the house, but I've barely taken ten steps when something hits me in the back with a soft wet thud. It doesn't hurt in the least – my coat's too well-insulated for that – and I turn back, suspicious, to see Pollux lingering in the stable doorway, whistling nonchalantly.

I may not be good at reading people, but I know a challenge when I see one.

I quickly scoop and pack a handful of snow and let it fly, smacking him in the chest. Far from disconcerted, Pollux delightedly returns fire. He's stronger than me but slower and far less accurate; my years of hunting – of surviving on what I can hit with arrows and stones – have instilled in me swift reflexes and a keen degree of marksmanship, even in a snowball fight.

I honestly can't remember the last time I threw a snowball. The snow in Twelve is filthy with coal dust, and starving as its citizens are, there's little energy for any of us to waste on recreation. It feels so good, forming one perfect white snowball after another and pelting them at Peeta's jovial manservant – luxurious, almost, like the skating.

I triumph, of course, though Pollux manages to get in a few decent hits. He finally disappears into the stable, laughing throatily, gloved hands up in a gesture of surrender. I crouch and wait, grinning, for another sneak attack, but he doesn't reemerge.

Resigned to the end of our game, I turn back to the house, but I'm so flushed from the exertion that I decide instead to flop onto my back in the snow. It's so gloriously warm inside my fur-lined coat and fleecy boots; I'm like a rabbit in its burrow, peeping out of my cozy bundling at the winter day.

I swish my arms and legs through the snow surrounding me and find myself making a snow angel. Dad taught me this when I was a tiny child – before Prim was born, I think – but only in the woods, catkin. Then as now, the district snow was almost tarry with coal dust; to lie in it was as good as ruining your clothes, and even then, we had few to spare.

I sit up, remembering another childhood occasion, when I held a bowl of fresh snow in mittened hands while Dad drizzled a hot amber liquid over it – maple syrup, boiled over the fire in the little shack by the lake. Maple taffy, he called it, though I always thought of it as "sugar snow." We brought home and sold all the rest of the syrup he harvested; it made me sad not to be able to make the treat at home and share it with Prim, but only the snow at the lake was clean enough to eat, Dad said.

The snow around me is pure white and begging to be tasted. I scoop a little in my gloved hand – it almost looks like sugar, heaped on my palm – and bring it to my mouth. It's clean and fresh and very cold – so cold it makes my teeth ache. I've eaten snow for hydration before, but it never tasted quite like this. Maybe Peeta really does live in some kind of fairyland, I muse. Even the snow is delicious. I laugh at the thought and lip up another palmful of snow.

Dad and I also used to make snowmen in the woods. Looking at the heaps and heaps of snow around me – it was "sticky" enough for snowballs, so it'll be perfect for a snowman – I'm overcome by the desire to make a snowman now. I'm already unforgivably late back to the house; surely Peeta won't be angrier for a delay of a few minutes.

I climb carefully to my feet, so as not to ruin my snow angel, and form a compact ball of snow with my gloved hands. I roll it around the drifts until it's too big to move – almost waist high on me – then make another, half the size, to heft on top of it, and finally a third, half the size of the second, to place atop that. One perfect snowman, nearly as tall as I am, and not in the least dingy or gray with coal dust. Gleeful, I hop through the drifts like a hare and dig at the lakeshore with the toe of my boot until I find a few pebbles to create my snowman's face. This close to the woods, fallen branches are plentiful; I find two of a similar size for my snowman's arms and break away twigs to form his hands.

"He looks cold."

I start at the sound of Peeta's voice and look up, blushing and mortified. It's been at least half an hour since I saw him on the porch; in the meantime, I've been having a snowball fight, making a snowman – playing like a child. I have no words to explain myself, let alone to the grand young man standing beside me. He's dressed in his bearskin, the winter sun glinting gold off his blond curls.

"Here," he says, smiling, and unwinds his own scarf – a thick length of soft red wool – to wrap around the snowman's "neck." "That's better."

My jaw slacks a little. It's the very thing my father would've done – had done, even when the scarf around his neck was the only one he owned, and I'm reminded again of what an incredible father Peeta will be. Such a gentle, generous boy, with his big, warm hands and superb cooking and these little moments of playfulness. Scarves, ice skates, and peppermints…He'll pamper his wife with every comfort and tumble on the living room's mossy carpet with their children. Blond children, of course; chubby and fair-skinned and curly-haired. He'll show them how to feed Rye and will sneak apples and carrots into their pockets; maybe he'll even lift them up to sit on the pony's broad back. He'll teach them to paint and knead dough and make snowmen.

Something aches, low in my belly, at the thought of it, and I wonder, not for the first time, what happened to the girl he loved. The Capitol crew – the bizarre, colorful trio who came to film friends and family interviews when Peeta survived into the final eight – unearthed nothing more than the confirmation that there was, indeed, an object of his unrequited affections. Delly Cartwright turned crimson when asked and only managed to nod and shake her head in response to the flood of questions: yes, there was a girl in Twelve that Peeta was in love with; yes, he had known her for a long time; no, Delly didn't think the girl knew he liked her. Marko gave a sad chuckle when asked about the girl but didn't elaborate; the baker smiled grimly – the Games were particularly rough on him – and said, no doubt, we'd all find out when Peeta came home.

Only we didn't. Peeta won the Games and returned to Twelve, and once they finished parading him around for the cameras, he disappeared out to his Victor's Residence, only emerging for the Victory Tour and Harvest Festival and the occasional trip to town to collect supplies or a special delivery from the train station. He was as friendly as always and took time for anyone who wanted to speak to him, but he didn't openly seek out any girl or her attentions.

There are a few theories making the rounds in the district, the first – and most popular – being that he simply outgrew the girl after the Games. The boys at school joke coarsely about what Peeta might've seen and done in the Capitol; I blush and ignore them but am forced to admit, at the very least, he'll have encountered substantial beauty. Lavinia is a testament to that. She's prettier than any woman in Twelve, hands down, and she's his servant.

The second theory, and the saddest, is that Peeta did ask, quietly, and the girl turned him down. He might be a wealthy Victor, but he's missing half of his right leg. I don't see how that matters two pins, especially in such a fit, good-looking young man, but apparently some girls find the idea off-putting, and a few crude – and, in my opinion, cruel – jokes have been made in regard to his missing leg affecting his "performance" in the bedroom. I can't imagine that being a significant reason for a girl to turn him down, but if it was, I'm happy. Peeta deserves better than a wife repulsed by his body.

The third theory – and the one I put the most stock in, particularly after seeing this place – is that he wanted to make everything perfect for his girl before he proposed. He came back to the district with a cane; I caught a glimpse of him leaning heavily on it once – the powerful young man who killed a bear three times his size, reduced to a lean, hobbling cripple – and it almost broke my heart. He had to learn to walk without the cane, to move differently, before he could even think of pursuing a girl.

And, of course, he had to prepare his new home for her; outfit it with luxury and every comfort, as he most assuredly has. Feathering his nest, that one, Greasy Sae told me with a sly wink, one Saturday in September, while the girls around her whispered about the crate of dishes Peeta had collected from the train station that morning. It'll be lady's underthings next, she said. Mark my words.

I closed my ears to the gossip after that.

I wonder now if I'm meant to be the final piece of his plan. A maid for Peeta's bride-to-be. Surely, he has everything else in place.

"I've made you something," he says.

"I'm sorry!" I blurt in reply. "I-I lost track of time."

"You're on your own time now, Katniss," he says gently. "And you looked like you were having fun."

My blush returns and deepens. I wonder how much he saw.

"I saw you eating the snow," he says with a laugh, justifying my blush. "I had to taste it too, when I first got out here. It's so clean, almost sweet – which gives me an idea, actually." He grins. "Something Dad told me they used to do, back in the day, when you could still find clean snow in town. I think I'll save it for tomorrow, though," he says, his bright eyes glinting with mischief. "I have other ideas for tonight.

"Anyway, I just came out to say I've made you something to eat," he explains, "whenever you're ready, I mean. It's just cooling – and it'll keep – so stay out as long as you like."

I can smell it on him: butter – salty, creamy butter – and flour and sugar; something baked and rich. I didn't realize I was hungry again, but that faint whiff of bakery on him makes me abruptly ravenous. "I'm ready now," I tell him, and it's not a lie. I've wasted half the day in leisurely dining and playing in the snow; it's time and past for me to learn my chores. "I'll come in with you."

He takes me back to the living room where two mugs; a handsome teapot, enameled with a pine branch and pinecones; and a plate heaped with golden rectangular cookies wait on the low table in front of the sofa. Like last night, my slippers – well, Lavinia's slippers – are warming on the hearthstone.

Peeta removes his bearskin then helps me out of my outerwear, settles me on the sofa, and eases off my boots. My fingers are icicles after so much time in the snow, and I wonder if he's going to massage the blood back into them, like he did last night. I'm astonished by how much I want him to. I'm astonished by how disappointed I am when he doesn't.

He touches my hands, of course; squeezing them a little, chafing them briskly between his palms as he crouches in front of me. I curl my fingers in the cradle of his hands, trying to capture his heat in my fists, but it's not the same at all. I want his lingering touch again, his warm breath on my skin, so fiercely that, before I know what I'm doing, one stockinged foot brushes impatiently against his thigh.

Peeta gasps raggedly and looks up at me. I avoid his eyes, my face and chest – quite possibly my entire body – burning with blushes. "Katniss, a-are you-?" he rasps, only to break off mid-sentence. When I don't answer, he tilts his head to catch my eyes. "Do you…um…" He's blushing now, furiously, all the way to the roots of his hair. "Do you want me to rub your feet again?" he asks.

I stare at the fireplace, contemplating my reply. If I say yes, it's like admitting a weakness – yet another one – but clearly, Peeta already knows. In less than a day he's proven how very well he knows – or, at least, understands – me, and we're both so painfully embarrassed right now that a refusal – proceeding as though nothing had happened – would be excruciating.

"Yes," I whisper to the flames.

Peeta eases his fingertips inside the cuff of my right sock and carefully tugs it down, peeling the thick, knobby wool off my foot. I melt back into the sofa with a sigh, my blush fading – but not the heat that accompanied it – as I press my bare foot into his warm hand. My eyes drift closed, but I feel him smile as he folds both hands around my foot and massages it thoroughly, ankle to toes, paying special attention to the arch – the spot that made me moan last night. I bite back any such exclamations this time, though; I'm sure Peeta finds me ridiculous enough without the sounds.

When he's finished with that foot, he rests it on his thigh and slips the sock off my other foot to begin its massage. I wonder how it would feel to have his hands just a little higher, those strong warm fingers kneading my calf muscles –

"How was skating?" Peeta murmurs. His voice is low and a little shaky.

"Good – oh!" I exclaim, sitting up as I recall my foolishness. "I left the skates in the stable."

"Pollux will bring them back," he assures me, his thumb tracing the contour of my arch in slow, firm strokes. I push back against the gentle pressure of his touch, pinching my lips together to hold back a groan; it feels that good. "After all, he owes you for trouncing him in that snowball fight," he teases.

"You saw that?" I ask, more than a little embarrassed. I behaved like a child for most of the morning, but engaging in a snowball fight with another servant – when both of us clearly had other things to do – must merit a reprimand, even from Peeta.

"Mmm," he sighs. "You were magnificent." He dips his head, lifting my foot a little, and presses his lips to the arch.

I nearly fly off the sofa – and probably would, were it not for his big hands wrapped around my foot, gently anchoring me to the seat. To him. His lips are warm and soft and slightly parted; brief as their touch is, they leave a whisper of moisture on my skin.

Peeta Mellark just kissed my foot. And not the top of it, either: the arch, the part I walk on. "What was that for?" I gasp.

"I told you," he says, smiling, though his cheeks are a fiery shade of red once more. "You're magnificent."

He quickly bends and kisses the arch of my other foot, as though afraid I'll stop him, then he straightens and reaches for the slippers on the hearthstone. But I'm not ready for them yet. My bare feet are humming with sensation, with the feel of Peeta's hands and lips; to cover them now would be constrictive, almost painful.

"I'm all right for the moment," I tell him, stilling his hand on the slippers. My right foot is still resting on his thigh, savoring the rough texture of his trousers and the heat of his body beneath. I'm astonished by how badly I want to rub my foot against him, just a little, to feel the friction of the material against my sensitized skin. "Anyway, Lavinia probably wants her slippers back," I add hurriedly, avoiding his eyes.

"Katniss."

I look up reluctantly; he's smiling, but the color in his cheeks is still high. "They're not Lavinia's," he says lightly.

I wonder how I've managed to be so dense. I don't understand Peeta's generosity, not at all, but a boy who had a coat custom-made for me in the Capitol, with his own white bear's fur and embroidered katniss flowers, would hardly loan me his housekeeper's slippers. I don't know when he bought them or why, but they're exactly like the other things he's given me. The clothes, my hat and scarf; my bedroom, even: all soft, warm, and woodsy.

"Thank you," I tell him. It's inadequate and about half a day too late, but I'm overcome with the need to say something.

"You must be hungry," he says. He gently lowers my foot to the floor, then shifts up from his crouch to sit on the edge of the low table. "I've made you my granddad's famous shortbread." He hands me the plate with a grin. "And tea; have all you like."

I know about Mellark's shortbread – Merchant kids sometimes buy it on the way to school and devour it, piping hot, from paper wraps that positively radiate butter – but I've never been able to afford it. I've never even bought a piece for Prim; it was that big of a luxury.

I bite into one of the warm golden cookies and groan; it's dense and rich and crumbles on my tongue. I'm a relative stranger to butter, but it seems to me that if you added just enough flour to give it substance in the oven, that's what this would be. A cookie made of butter. My lips and fingers are deliciously oily just from touching it.

"Oh, this is good," I sigh, reaching for a second piece. I narrowly manage not to shove it into my mouth.

"Thank you," Peeta says, almost shyly, as he fills my mug with tea. "It's so simple – just butter, flour, sugar, and a pinch of salt – that I sort of hate taking credit for it."

He blows lightly on the mug before offering me the handle; I take a cautious sip and sigh again. It's a superb tea – malty but not bitter, with a startling, bright note of strawberry – perfectly paired with the shortbread.

"Do you want milk or sugar?" he offers, filling the second mug for himself. "This kind is really good as it is, but – "

"It's perfect," I assure him. I've used the word a lot today, more than I ever have in my life before, and yet it's not an exaggeration. Everything I've seen – everything Peeta's given me – has been absolutely perfect. Faultless. Impossible to make better. "Aren't you going to have some too?" I ask, holding out the plate.

"If you insist," he replies, smiling. He takes a piece of shortbread and eats it thoughtfully while I bolt down my third and fourth pieces, interspersed with plenty of hot tea. I don't know how I can still be hungry after that huge breakfast, but with the shortbread in front of me, it's like I haven't eaten in days.

"This isn't very substantial," Peeta says suddenly. "I'm sorry."

I realize he's not speaking for himself; he's been watching me inhale the shortbread. I sheepishly force myself to chew the bite in my mouth five more times before swallowing it.

"Would you like something else?" he asks.

"No, thank you," I assure him. "I'm fine."

He's clearly unconvinced. "A boiled egg?" he persists. "Some cheese?"

Both of those sound amazing right now, but Peeta's not here to cook for me; to cater to my stomach's whims. The shortbread and tea were more than enough. "N-No…" I say, but I can feel my resolve weakening.

"Bread?"

My resolve is gone altogether. I stare back at him with wide, hopeful eyes. Dammit.

Peeta grins. "Bread it is," he says. He disappears in the direction of the kitchen – I manage not to eat the rest of the shortbread in the few minutes that he's gone – and returns with a tray containing half of one of the loaves he made this morning and a dish of butter, plus thick slices of cheese, apple, and cold sausage. I want to snap at him, but I really am hungry; I can't hide my eagerness at the sight of so much food.

He sits on the edge of the low table again and, as he did this morning, serves me a feast. As he did last night with the apple, he silently cuts slices of the bread – his own good bread; soft, golden-crusted Mellark Bakery bread – slathers them with butter, and hands them to me, topped with a piece of sweet, savory sausage or the pleasantly sharp yellow cheese. Sometimes he pairs the cheese with a piece of tart pink apple. He doesn't rush but patiently waits for me to finish, or nearly finish, whatever he gave me before preparing the next serving. I'm reminded again of how uncannily he seems to know me: whatever combination he hands me is, somehow, exactly what I'm craving in that bite.

"It's heartbreaking, watching you eat," he says softly.

I look up at him, frowning. I wonder if he could be mocking me – my manners or voracious appetite – but there's a strange sort of pain in his eyes. "You have this look of wonder at even the most ordinary things," he explains, "and, at the same time, disbelief."

He brushes my cheek with a fingertip and I shiver. Not from fear or discomfort; my skin tingles where he touched it, so very gently. "I swear to you, Katniss," he says, "For the rest of your life, you will always have enough to eat."

The words are quiet but intense, like last night in the sleigh, when he promised to mentor me in the Games, if it came to that. When he promised he wouldn't let me die. "More than enough," he corrects himself, perhaps recalling how very little enough might be to someone like me, then, "Too much." A small smile teases up the corners of his mouth, and I know he's recalling my words from this morning. "Too much of everything for the rest of your life, Katniss," he vows. "I promise."

Something about this declaration steals my breath away. I suppose a cold and hungry worker is no good to him, but such overwhelming generosity – the rich food and fine clothes, when plain of both would have sufficed – is wholly unexpected; unnecessary, really, even if he can afford it. And yet, a small, secret part of me takes comfort in his promise. Even if, as I suspect, Peeta's exaggerating somewhat, I'll have warm clothes and plenty of food for the rest of my life. My eyes burn a little at the thought, and I twist my lips to hold back a small sob. I agreed to this bargain to help Mom and Prim. It never occurred to me, despite what Peeta said that night about me being well taken care of and having the very best, that I might get food and clothes and a warm home too.

When I've eaten all I can possibly stomach, Peeta cuts one final slice of bread and folds it in half, making himself a sandwich with the last of the sausage and cheese. After his careful, patient feeding of me, it's an endearingly childish gesture, and I wonder if he's been ignoring his own hunger all this time while ensuring I had plenty. He takes a few bites, washing them down with tea, then asks cheerfully, "Are you ready for your tour?"

---

Author's Note: Come visit me on Tumblr for news, fangirling, fic research geekery, and the occasional teaser. I live at porchwood dot tumblr dot com, and I also just started a recs blog, everlarkescapism dot tumblr dot com. (If you like my fics, you'll love my recs! ;D)

Last but not least: I'm coauthoring a fic with the lovely DandelionSunset called The Sleep of Paradise (an Everlark retelling ofThe Blue Lagoon)! It's not live on FFnet or AO3 yet, but there are some teasers on my Tumblr, and news about how/when/where it will be posted will show up there first. :D