I soon discovered that the downside of having both of your tributes surviving the Games for longer was the fact that it increased their chances of being forced to kill each other.
Unfortunately, I only discovered this after Claudius Templesmith announced to all Panem that my tributes- my tributes- would have to fight to the death after all.
I also learned how much I had changed through knowing them. When they held the berries up and showed the Capitol that they would rather die than kill each other, my first comment was not a rant on how I did not send them cutlery so that they could just continue to eat with their fingers.
Although that was my second comment.
I was worried. Very worried, I'll admit. I mean, I didn't know how much Peeta and Katniss could get away with- certainly not threatening suicide on the Gamemakers. They would just see that as rude, I had no idea how to apologize.
"Apologize?!" Haymitch was as sober as I'd ever seen him. "Woman, don't you get it? There is no apologizing! And even if we did, it wouldn't make any difference! We're all dead!"
Now that hurt. Not being called woman (though I am a lady) or even the fact that manners apparently wouldn't help. It was the fact that Haymitch alerted to me a danger that was very real. I realised then, in a moment of Eureka-like clarity, that there was a large chance I might actually die. I wasn't ready to die. I was only- well, age isn't really an issue. I had so much to offer the world, in so many ways, some of them not even fashion related!
And that moment when they held out the berries, my world was turned upside down and nothing was the same after that.
