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They Put Their Dead on Television

Katniss' POV

The day we found it, we'd already been hauling around an above-average catch. We'd struck luck at every snare Gale put out, and most of mine. Meanwhile, I'd managed to fling an arrow at a passing fat, doughy bird. We wouldn't die of hunger tonight. When I pointed this out to Gale, he half-smiled at me and said that it might be a good thing if we did. I didn't need to ask why. We both knew. Effie Trinket knew. Certainly, everybody from ages twelve to eighteen and their parents knew.

"Happy Reaping Day, Catnip." Gale had grinned, slinging his bow over his shoulder. With that grin lighting up his face, he looked almost as if he was glad it was Reaping Day. Almost as if he was daring the Capitol to pick him, to try him out and see how they liked plotting his death out on a whiteboard. His smile scared me a little bit, if only because I knew that Gale would probably be the best Hunger Games candidate in District 12. And it was possible too. He had the highest tesserae count this year.

"May the odds…" I added, in that Capitol accent. I was actually kind of good at it.

"Be ever in you favour." Gale's accent was horrible. I knew he could easily make it more convincing, but I think he knew it made me smile when he did it wrong. Today was no different, and the corner of my lip curled up against my will.

Gale's gaze shifted over the top of my head. He let out a breath, his lips slightly parted, eyes widening.

"Wha-"

He put his finger to that mouth, which had become a constant lunch-time gossip topic for girls in my year. This had actually been a growing pet peeve of mine lately. It was almost as if the giggles followed me wherever I went, buzzing in my ears when I walked down the halls in school. Or maybe, more accurately, when he walked down the halls in school.

I spun around, and there it was. A doe was poised right in shooting range, touching its left leg to the grass of the forest occasionally, before lifting it up again as if it hurt to touch it. My arrow sunk right into her nose. Gale jogged over and flipped out his knife, slitting her throat in one fluid motion. He kneeled down and pulled my arrow out carefully. The doe's blood covered his hands. I watched over his shoulder.

He took a cloth out of his pocket and swiped his knife clean of blood, standing up with a dazed look on his face.

"She's beautiful." He breathed, staring at the glassy-eyed creature.

"It is something." After a second of silence, I added, "Vifia'll love us." Vifia was the current butcher who always grumbled when we provided her with squirrel and wild dog, claiming that we did better than that but sold the game to Greasy Sae instead.

Gale turned to me, a strange look in his eye.

"What?" I demanded.

"Nothing." He said, frowning to himself, and started hoisting the doe up. I scrambled over, and somehow, bearing such a heavy weight, we made it through the electric fence. The doe's glassy eyes stared up, and I stared away.

…

Something metal glinted in the sunlight. I blinked.

It came down near my finger.

I screamed when I saw the blood

"It's not yours." Gale said, dipping his eyes towards the wound.

The doe's ear was gone.

My words stuck in my throat when a swarm of silver surrounded me, splattering noises, hacking noises, clustered my ears like giggles, but smoother.

"Catnip, watch the eyes." Gale repeated to me as we hauled the doe through the cobble stone streets, like a mantra. "Watch the eyes."

Vifia loved the eyes. Why she put squirrel and dog below her, but not eyeballs, was beyond me. She'd pay a decent price for a good glassy eye. Apparently they were delicious pickled on a bed of grainy rice or sliced in a sandwich with peppered sausage.

A flash of bronze sliced near the eye that I was guarding. I glanced at its owner, an old man grinning with his toothless mouth. I jerked the doe's head away from his knife, but it caught the doe's brow.

I was drenched in blood, and I had an audience, because the glassy eye stared the whole time. I stared away.

…

"Smile." Gale instructed.

I shook my head, pursing my lips.

"Do it."

"No."

He sighed, sitting down on the step of Vifia's shop. "It could've been worse. Could've lost the eye."

"I guess so." I conceded. Vifia had haggled the value of the game so low that it could've been one of those dogs she hated so much, not the most precious piece of meat we'd ever encountered behind the fence. The doe's eyes were so large and brown that we'd bargained a pretty good price out of it, though; some coins, and more importantly, a nice slab of the doe's flesh for Reaping Day supper.

"Next time we'll know better." Gale said, staring ahead. "We won't bring it to the hob first. Straight to Vifia's."

"How do you know we'll find another? It had an injured leg. That's luck, Gale." We weren't usually lucky people, with the exception of the Reaping. With the amount of tesserae we produced, it was a miracle we weren't already rotting in Capitol graves. Or wherever they put their dead. On television, I guess.

"It?" He looked at me. "You keep calling her 'it'."

"And?"

"You could call her 'she'. She's a doe, Catnip. You could call Buttercup 'he', but you don't."

I opened my mouth, meaning to explain to him that I really hated animals and that I couldn't make myself call them that, but he was so good at seeing through lies.

"It's not normal to want things to die." Gale told me softly. "You don't have to pretend."

But I did. If I didn't, I suspected that the world would come crashing down on me, like it did with my mother. I could pretend that Buttercup wasn't living, so that it couldn't be dying. This doe couldn't be dead, I couldn't have killed it, if it was never really alive, right?

But I could be dead. Gale could be dead. The two truths I had to look in the glassy-eyed face later today.

"I don't like killing either, you know. But we have to, Katniss. One day," He sat back on the step, polishing his knife again. "The Capitol will be in our position."

"This is about the Capitol?"

"It's always about the Capitol." He smiled grimly. "I better go. Reaping Day and all." He stood and held out his hand to help me up. I took it, even though my hand was sticky with blood and so was his.

"And may the odds…" Gale grinned that grin that scared the death out of me. His accent was especially horrible.

"We did this already." I protested, trying to push the corner of my mouth down.

"Catnip…" He threatened, grabbing me by the bow hanging around my shoulder and pulling me back, holding me until I finished the line.

That grin spread across my face, and it felt so out of place here. It worked in the forest, where there wasn't people passing on the streets looked like they were marching to their deaths, which was true in some cases. "Be ever in your favour."

"There it is." He said. "This has to be the first time I've ever seen you smile outside of the fence. Do you love nature that much, Catnip?" My smile widened against my will. "It's not fair to the buildings. They love your smile."

"I'll be sure to put in more of an effort." I didn't mention how his smile was equally sparse one each side of the fence. He was only trying to make me feel better about our game being destroyed.

"Good." He nodded to himself, letting go of my bow, turning in the direction of his house.

"Good." I said, because this word also had no place in District 12. But Gale never met a rule he didn't like to break, and sometimes, I liked to break them with him.

Walking back home, I rubbed my hands together until its blood curled into little dry pieces and then fell to the ground.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this one. This was pretty long, eh? I sense a breakthrough…

The purpose of this chapter was foreshadowing, just so we're clear; Gale's revenge, Katniss' need for good things… and all of the other character ticks revealed mostly in Mockingjay, but also in the Hunger Games and Catching Fire.

I'm in love with reviews. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you were debating whether or not to put yourself out on a limb and send one. Honestly, I do.