A/N: Features lyrics from ''S Toigh Leam Fhìn Buntàta 'S Ìm' by Julie Fowlis
*Sexual Content Featured*
MELLIE POV
On a chilly day in late September, I went looking for my sister at the grocer, but she was nowhere to be found. It wasn't often that we spoke, but Caseo, my husband, asked me to find her and invite her to Peeta's toasting with that Seam rat he called his girlfriend. Normally, I would have put up a fight about going, but Caseo stood firm - I was going to attend whether I liked it or not. At least if I invited my sister, it would be a little more bearable for me. When I arrived at the grocer, my brother-in-law, Archer, smiled when he saw me, but it was a forced smile. "Mellie, what a pleasant surprise!" he said to me.
"Hello, Archer," I said cooly. "I'm here to see my sister. Is she in?"
"Down at the Hob today," Archer told me. I shuddered. My sister and I were brought up in the merchant class, merchants weren't supposed to go down to the Hob, but something about it always seemed to attract my sister. I nodded my thanks to Archer before I left and headed to the Hob, making damn sure to cover my head and face with my shawl so no one would recognise me. When I arrived, I found my sister deep in conversation with an older man in a language I positively abhorred, and I cleared my throat. She stopped and turned, a look of surprise etched on her face when she recognised me.
"Mellie," she said.
"Hello, Maidie," I replied in English.
"What are you doing here?" my sister, Maidie, asked me. We were both in our forties now, each of us with silver storm grey eyes and reddish-blonde hair. She was two years older than me.
"My son's getting married and asked that you be invited. Thought I would stop by and invite you myself, but Archer said you were here," I replied.
"I thought Christos's wedding wasn't until the winter," Maidie asked me, and I shook my head.
"It is in winter. My youngest son is getting married," I told her.
"Peeta?" I nodded. "Oh, good for him, after the right foul things he had to endure in the Hunger Games. To the girl from the Seam? The Hebridean one?"
"Yes."
"Good for him. He's not blinded by class or by status." I knew she was making a dig at me. I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Shall I tell him you're coming or not?" I asked sharply.
"Of course, I'd love to go. His fiancée is a wonderful person. She delivered my Alice's daughter in the spring." I nodded.
"Good. It'll be on Sunday at their home in the Village. Three o'clock, don't be late."
"I won't be." We exchanged a moment of silence, and then Maidie tapped my arm. "It was good to see you, Mel." She then walked off, and I turned to watch her leave the Hob. As I was about to take my own leave, a familiar melody started wafting through the air, one I hadn't heard in years. Of course, I never heard it set to music, but my mother used to sing it to me...
'S toigh leam fhìn buntàta 's ìm,
'S toigh leam fhìn na caileagan,
'S toigh leam fhìn buntàta 's ìm,
Is nìghneagan a' bhaile seo...
I brushed off the memory. My mother was dead and she'd been dead for years. I remembered where I was and huffed to myself, angry that I was being dragged into my past by the sound of a melody being played on some old broken fiddle. I stormed out of there as quickly as I could, refusing to spend another minute with the lowly class of the Seam.
KATNISS POV
It was Sunday, the thirtieth of September, the day that Peeta and I decided would be the day of our toasting. I woke up in our bed alone - I had moved in with him the day I discovered my pregnancy - to a note that simply said:
Katniss,
I love you. I'll see you soon, my beautiful bride.
Yours forever,
Peeta
It warmed my heart to hold this simple, but sweet note in my hands. Peeta would be getting ready at the bakery with his brothers while I would be getting ready at my old house with Agnessa and Prim. Agnessa and I were not on speaking terms and she respected my space, but Peeta convinced me that it wouldn't be right to not invite her to the toasting. "She still raised you, Katniss," he'd said in response.
"No she didn't. I raised myself and Prim and kept Agnessa alive," I spat back.
"It still wouldn't be right to not invite her," Peeta persisted, and I sighed and gave up. It didn't matter who was watching, honestly; all that mattered was that I was marrying the only man in the world that could melt my icy heart - the only man who reminded me that my heart still had room for love within it. Prim and I prepared together, Prim helping me dress in a beautiful cream-coloured dress that was simple and had been designed by Cinna, along with a note that said ' I'm always betting on you, girl on fire' . I had also gone to fetch the Fòlais tartan from my treehouse - it looked like a blanket, so it could easily be passed off as one anyway. It was, after all, quite chilly outside. I wrapped it around my waist in the traditional Hebridean wedding style. Around my neck, too, was a tartan cloth that was very commonly worn in Hebridean weddings for the what we call 'the exchange of the tartan', in which, if Peeta were Hebridean, we would exchange his family tartan with mine and he would give me his to signify the joining of the two families.
Prim was trying to help me with my hair, something I had asked her and not Agnessa to do, when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," I said, hoping it was anyone but Agnessa, and when the person who knocked entered the room, I was nearly shocked. "Mrs. Mellark," I said, meeting the woman's storm grey eyes in the mirror. "Can I help you?"
"I, uh... Well..." the woman began, and she let out a sigh. "As you know, I don't have any daughters."
"Yes, something you never fail to remind your youngest son of," I said, somewhat bitterly and still not turning around.
"Aaricia doesn't want me all that involved in her wedding and Christos isn't going to ask her to... and Rye, well, lord knows if he ever intends on settling down... I was wondering if I might... be of some assistance," said Mrs. Mellark, and I was actually quite surprised. She was refraining from any and all harsh remarks about how I was a Seam rat and about how she hated refugees.
"Did Peeta ask you to come?" I asked her.
"No, I came on my own," she replied. I glanced at Prim briefly, who shrugged, and then I turned around to finally face Peeta's mother.
"I don't have a mother anymore. You know very well that Agnessa is not my biological mother. I lost my mother when my family came here from Hebridia... You will be the closest thing I will ever have to a mother due to my marriage to your son. So yes, I'll allow you to help." She nodded gently, her thin mouth remaining neutral, and she took a few steps closer to me and stood behind me. She picked up the brush that Prim had abandoned as she moved over to sit on the bed and Mrs. Mellark started brushing out my hair.
"You really love my son, don't you?" she asked me suddenly.
"Yes, very much so," I told her.
"You hardly know him. Aren't you afraid you're rushing the relationship a little bit?"
"I'm not worried in the slightest. Peeta and I have been through so much together that there's no reason why we wouldn't be happy together. And besides... there are... other reasons... that we have to marry."
"Yes, my husband told me." I was silent as I watched her in the mirror as she brushed through my thick chocolate brown curls, and then using a comb, she separated parts of my hair and started to braid them.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"A traditional Hebridean wedding braid," she replied.
"You know how to do those?" I asked again, and she met my eyes in the mirror briefly before returning to her work and nodding quietly. "You understand Gàidhlig, too."
"Doesn't everyone in District Twelve know a little bit of the Hebridean language?" She was giving me dodgy answers, as if she was trying to hide something.
"You've got the eyes of a Hebridean. Stormy grey, like the cloudy skies of Hebridia." She was silent as she finished the braid, and then she turned to Prim, who was sitting on the bed.
"This is done, if you want to put the flowers in," Mrs. Mellark told her, and she nodded and slipped off the bed, and Mrs. Mellark headed towards the door.
"Thank you, Mrs. Mellark," I said to the middle-aged woman before she left, and she paused in the door.
"You'll be family soon. Call me Mellie," she told me, and then she left my old bedroom. I could have sworn I heard a Hebridean inflection when she pronounced the word 'soon', as any word with an 'oo' sound was generally very hard to hide a Hebridean accent in.
Soon, it was time for the actual ceremony. I had also invited Madge Undersee and her parents, although only her father showed up to officiate the ceremony - her mother had a horrible headache and couldn't even leave the house. Prim had laced dandelion flowers throughout the intricate braid that Peeta's mother had done and in my hand was a bouquet of dandelions and wildflowers that Peeta had picked himself the day before. I waited in the living room while everyone else was outside and was joined by Haymitch, who stood in the doorway. "Is what we're doing okay?" I asked him, and he raised his finger to his lips, pointing again to the ceiling.
"If you love the boy, you know you're doin' okay. You could do a hell of a lot worse," he told me, trying to make it sound as if I hadn't been asking in regards to Snow.
"Well, there's no question about that," I said in response. I rested my hand on my abdomen, which hadn't grown much in the six days since I discovered my pregnancy, if at all. I was almost three months now, sitting comfortably at eleven weeks. I was relatively small for how far along I was, according to Agnessa - just small enough for it to remain unnoticed to those who didn't know. But of course, I knew, and I could feel that bump beneath my dress.
"He's a good kid," Haymitch told me, and then he went outside. Before I knew it, Prim was coming to fetch me for the ceremony. District Twelve weddings were generally very small and short, with a quick exchange of vows and wedding bands before we signed the documents that would legally declare us married. It was the toasting ceremony, which Peeta and I would do later that evening, that had more words to it. The vows consisted of us joining hands and promising to love and support one another through everything, in sickness and in health, and the works, and before we kissed, the mayor allowed me to perform the exchange of the tartan ceremony. Peeta didn't have a tartan to give me, as he wasn't Hebridean (or was he? I was quite suspicious of Mellie Mellark and her knowledge of Gàidhlig and the Hebridean wedding braids), so I simply removed the tartan cloth from around my neck and tied it around his.
"You are one with my family," I told him in Gàidhlig, which of course, he didn't understand, but I gave his hands a reassuring squeeze with an unspoken promise of explaining later. When the mayor declared us man and wife, Peeta sweetly took my face in his hands and kissed me in the most appropriate way he could possibly muster, which, in all honesty, probably wasn't even all that appropriate - I hoped that Prim didn't notice his tongue was practically down my throat! When we broke the kiss, he pressed his forehead against mine, holding me tightly in his arms.
"Hello, Mrs. Mellark," he whispered to me, causing my insides to tingle, and I giggled lightly.
"Hello, Mr. Mellark," I replied, my hands gripping onto his shoulders tightly. Afterwards, we went inside and signed all the documentation that stated the legality of our marriage, including a documentation of name change. I signed my name twice as Katniss Everdeen, once as Katniss Fòlais, as it was a former legal name, and then at the very bottom, I signed my name as Mrs. Katniss Mellark. We got to keep a copy of the marriage certificate, too, which read:
Peeta Mellark of District Twelve, Panem and Katniss Fòlais Everdeen of Uibhist, Hebridia were joined in matrimony on this day, the thirtieth of September in the year 2159.
It was official. Peeta Mellark was my husband, and I was his wife, and in six months, we would welcome a new addition to our family. It was easy to forget, at least for the day, that we were still both victors of the Hunger Games and that our lives were so drastically unusual. I pretended that I was the huntress I was before marrying the youngest son of the baker, as if neither of us had ever been reaped. It was easy to think like that, with guests like Peeta's parents and two brothers, his aunts and cousins, Agnessa and Prim and the Hawthorne family. The only guest that was missing was Gale, who refused to come, still believing that my love for Peeta was a fabrication of the Capitol, but I brushed that out of my mind, too. I would not be angry today, not on this happiest day of all days.
I met, for the first time, Peeta's two aunts, Maidie Flipper and Ophelia Laurens. Maidie Flipper was the wife of the grocer in town and was Peeta's mother's sister, while Ophelia Laurens was the wife of the tailor and she was Peeta's father's sister. Evidently, Peeta's father had also had a brother, who was reaped the year before Haymitch's Games. Of course, he never came home. Everyone seemed to have a connection to someone who was reaped in District Twelve.
The night went on and we dined and feasted on a turkey I had shot the day before and cut the beautiful toasting cake that Peeta had baked and decorated with dandelions and hues of green and orange. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted and I greedily consumed three slices of it. "I'm eating for two, leave me be," I reminded Peeta when he laughed as I claimed my third slice.
Towards the end of the night, I started getting quite tired and I stepped outside for a bit of air and a moment of peace. The night was beautiful - clear, cloudless and almost a full moon, slowly fading away into the new moon that would come in almost two weeks' time. A chilly breeze picked up and I wrapped myself up in the Fòlais tartan, the salty scent of the Hebridean sea still embedded in its fibers even years later. I closed my eyes to the breeze, focusing on that, when I heard the door open and a set of footsteps approach me. I heard them stop beside me and I felt a warm hand on my lower back, and when I opened my eyes and looked to my right, my silver Hebridean eyes met the beautiful blue ones of my sweet Peeta. I smiled at him warmly and he took that as his cue to wrap his arms around me and hold me against his chest. "Getting ready to wind down?" he asked me.
"Can't wind down yet... we still have a toasting to do," I told him, burying myself in his arms. I took in his scent - cinnamon and dill, and a scent that was exclusive only to my Peeta that I couldn't describe as anything but 'Peeta'. "...plus we still have tonight."
"If you're tired, we don't have to do anything like that," he told me as he rubbed my back.
"Peeta, you're too sweet, but have you thought about asking for things and not assuming I don't want them?" I asked him, picking up my head and resting my chin on his chest to look at him. "Just because I'm tired doesn't mean I don't want you to take me tonight. I love all that we do... but I miss you."
"But I've never left?"
" Inside of me, Peeta."
"...oh."
"Yeah, oh." I stood on my toes to give him a chaste kiss. "Can we? Tonight?"
"Is... is that okay? With the baby and all?"
"I don't know, let's ask her, shall we?" I pulled back and then exposed my barely-there abdomen from under the tartan, placing a hand over it and talking to it. "Is it okay if Daddy goes inside Mummy tonight?"
"Katniss!" Peeta hissed, and I laughed as he took me back into his arms.
"Peeta, it's fine! The baby is in my womb and you can't physically get in there. Don't worry, we'll be okay. Just don't crush me." He scoffed as he buried his lips in my hair.
"You think it's a girl? What makes you think that?"
"I dunno... I just have a feeling, I guess. Call it mother's intuition." I lifted my head again to give him another kiss. "C'mon then, let's go and tell everyone goodnight. We've got bread to toast." We shared one final kiss out there on the back porch before we went inside together, thanking our guests and giving our goodbyes, and then we were on our way across the courtyard to the home that Peeta and I shared.
PEETA POV
I had baked the bread earlier in the day - raisin nut bread, the same bread that I had given her that day in the rain, when we were eleven. I set up the loaf on a tray with a serrated knife and two cups of piping hot chocolate for us to indulge ourselves on. My wife deserved the best, after all.
My wife. Katniss Everdeen was my wife. Katniss Fòlais was my wife. All of my dreams since I was a young boy had finally come true, although certainly in ways I hadn't expected. I dreamt of proposing to Katniss on the day of our last reaping, when we were finally safe forever from the arena. That kind of happened - I proposed to Katniss after we both came back from the same arena, destined to never return again. I dreamt of marrying Katniss in the town square, where all merchant families got married, showing off my beautiful wife to anyone who would look. Instead, I married her inside of her home in Victors' Village in the company of our families and Haymitch, who has become our family. I dreamt that Katniss and I would bring children into the world who were loved and adored, at a time when we were both ready. That certainly didn't happen - this little baby that was growing inside of her was a big surprise to us both, but that didn't mean that it wouldn't be loved any less.
I sat down in front of her, the two of us kneeling across from each other by the fireplace. The light of the fire reflected in both of our eyes, as well as off of the silver wedding bands that adorned each of our fingers. "Are you ready to toast?" I asked my wife, and she smiled warmly at me and nodded.
"Forgive me if I don't know what I'm doing... I've never really learned how to perform a toasting. I never thought I'd have one," she replied.
"Don't worry, you're only performing it once and that's that," I told her, taking her hands in mine and kissing them. I then cut the loaf of bread in half and we each took a piece of the half, sticking it on a toasting fork and holding them in the fire, allowing them to become toasted. When they were crisp enough, we removed them from the flames and held them in front of ourselves, locking our free hands together.
"Katniss... I have been in love with you for eight years now and my love for you has not diminished one bit. I have loved you ever since I heard you sing and the birds stopped to listen - I knew that that was the moment that I had fallen in love with you, and that I knew I was a goner. I didn't care that you were Seam or a refugee and I was merchant... I just loved you for who you were. So my Katniss... with the toasting of this bread, I promise to love you for all of eternity, to care for you in sickness and in health, and to cherish every moment that we have together," I said, reciting the toasting vows from memory. I may have practiced them a few times daydreaming of Katniss as a kid. She smiled warmly at my declaration of love for her and then she cleared her throat to speak.
"Peeta... oh, my sweet Peeta, how I wish I could say I've loved you just as long, but I can't, because I didn't know what love was. I had lost so much while so young that I hadn't learned how to love with all my heart, but you showed me how. I can pinpoint the moment that I admitted to myself that I loved you, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I could pinpoint the moment that I actually fell in love with you, too. We were nine years old, and I had been pushed into a puddle by a lad from school. He mocked me because I wasn't from Panem and because I hardly spoke English... and it was you who got me out of it. You gave me your hand and helped me to stand, not caring one bit if anyone saw you. I realised then that you were so kind to me not because you pitied me, but because you genuinely were kind, and that was the moment that I fell in love with you. Of course, I didn't know it at the time... I wish I'd realised it sooner. Even if the Games didn't happen to us... we would have happened anyway." It was my turn to smile at her as she told me the story of when she first fell in love with me, and I was surprised to realise it was much earlier than either of us had thought. "Peeta... with the toasting of this bread..." She paused, trying to remember the vow.
"...I promise..." I whispered, helping her out.
"I promise... to love you for all of eternity, to... to care for you in... in sickness and in health..." She paused again, struggling to recall the words.
"...and to cherish..."
"...and to cherish each moment that we have together." She gave my hand a squeeze, and then we each fed each other the warm, toasted bread on the toasting form before sharing a warm, passionate kiss. I took her beautiful face in my hands and kissed her several times, drawing her even closer to me and groaning with each and every kiss. When we finally came up for air, I pressed my forehead against hers and opened my eyes to meet her.
"You are officially my wife, in every sense," I whispered to her.
"Not until you've taken me to bed," she whispered back, and just at the mention of that, I could feel my pants tighten just a little, which she of course noticed. "Eager, aren't we?"
"I'll bet if I slipped my hand under that dress, I'd find you soaking wet for me."
"Positively dripping ." I shuddered at the thought.
"If you don't stop teasing me, I'll take you right here and not carry you to bed."
"Mmmm, so take me to bed already, won't you?" I took that as my cue, and I stood up and pulled her to stand with me, then swept her up off of her feet and into my arms, carrying her swiftly up the stairs as she giggled and held onto my neck.
"You are going to regret ever teasing me, Mrs. Mellark," I warned her as I laid her on the bed.
"Shush and take my clothes off already," she replied, clearly not taking me seriously.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," I replied back as I reached toward the back of her dress to unzip it. She shimmied out of it as I unbuttoned my shirt, leaving her in absolutely nothing. I paused to gape at her as she smirked playfully at me. "You... you weren't wearing anything... underneath that?"
"Nope."
"Katniss, we had guests ! We had our families around us!"
"Hence why I wanted to get out of there so quickly." She reached for my neck to pull me into a kiss, but I resisted.
"Nope, you're getting punished for teasing me."
"Not too harshly, Peeta. I am carrying your child, after all." I silenced her with a chaste kiss, then finished removing my shirt, leaving my pants on. "Clothes are forbidden on wedding nights, you know."
"Unless the bride is misbehaving," I teased. "Shh, you'll get what you want soon, now hush up and accept your punishment." I started kissing her neck first, my hand running slowly up her side, pausing just below her left breast. She raised her arm to accommodate me, but I slid my hand down her side instead, resulting in a groan of disapproval from Katniss.
"Peeta..." she moaned, and my hand climbed her side again and brushed her skin just under her breast before pulling away again. "Peeta, stop! Enough of this!"
"I'm going to make you feel so good, baby," I whispered into her ear, taking her earlobe between my teeth and lightly sucking on it. "Trust me..."
"I trust you..." she said breathlessly. The third time I brought my hand up, I cupped her breast in my hand, teasing her nipple slightly with my thumb. "Oh, Peeta..." My thumb left her nipple and I pushed myself up, and she raised her chest, expecting me to latch onto her breast with my mouth, but I surprised her by positioning myself instead between her legs. "Peeta!"
"Shhh, trust me, honey..." I said, making sure to breathe out my words over the little bean that made her squirm.
" Peeta Mellark! " she hissed at me, and I chuckled gently.
"You're not very patient, are you?" I asked her, and she growled at me in response. I kissed all around that little bean - her left inner thigh, her right inner thigh, just above it, just slightly to the left of it - and eventually, out of frustration, she raised her hips and bumped it into my mouth.
" Enough , Peeta. I need you, now !" she growled at me.
"Say my name," I said to her, running a finger just off to the side of her lips down below.
" Peeta ," she moaned.
"Tell me you love me." This time, my finger circled around her little bean, but didn't touch it.
"I love you, Peeta! Peeta..."
"And who are you and what are you to me?" I dipped my finger into her wetness, causing her to shudder beneath me.
"I'm Katniss... and I'm your wife, oh ," she moaned.
"Damn right you are," I told her, placing a kiss on that little bean, causing her to writhe beneath me. Desperate to seek relief from my teasing, she raised her hands to her breasts and started teasing her own nipples. It was time to put this poor woman out of her misery and give her what she wanted. "I'm going to make you feel so good tonight, Katniss Mellark, and you're going to enjoy every second of it." She moaned quietly at my words, and then those moans increased in volume as I finally took that little bean in my mouth and started to suck on it. I flicked my tongue over it, teasing her again and again and kissing it as I slid two fingers into her at once.
"Peeta... Peeta, stop... I want you... inside me..." she breathed through her moans. I couldn't hide the fact that I wanted to be inside of her as much as she wanted me there, so I pulled away from her and stood to properly undo my pants and slip out of them and my boxers at the same time, then crawled on top of her and lowered myself to kiss her. Tenderly, she wrapped her arms around me and ran her hand through my hair, meeting my eyes and giving me a smile.
"Are you ready?" I asked her in a whisper, and she nodded.
"I always will be for you," she replied back. I kissed her one more time before I took myself in my hand and lined myself up at her entrance. I gave her one more chance to tell me to stop, even though I could see in her eyes how much she wanted it, before I began to push into her.
Like the first time, she groaned and grimaced, but this time, it wasn't out of pain. This time, her face was scrunched up in pleasure, her mouth falling open and forming an 'o' as I pushed further and further into her. Once I was completely inside of her, I gave her a moment to adjust to my size, burying my face in her neck and kissing it. And then, we started moving together. Our groans and grunts became synchronised as we moved together, both of us thrusting against one another. I felt one of her hands tightly grip my hair and the other firmly held my shoulder, her arm wrapped tight around me, while one of my hands cradled her head and the other lifted her hips to provide a better angle for us both. "Oh, Peeta... Peeta..." she whispered into the night, like a tender lover.
"Katniss..." I whispered back, my lips buried behind her ear. "Oh, honey, I'm so close..."
"Let go, m'eudail , I'll catch you," she told me tenderly, her lips brushing against my ear. I could feel the buildup of my release and I suddenly lost control, coming apart inside of her and letting out a loud moan to accompany my release. It took me only a moment to realise that she hadn't had hers yet, so I took what little energy I had left to reach down and start running circles on that little bean until I felt her constrict around me, and then she, too, released a moan. Together, we lay in each other's arms, my head resting on her chest and her legs and arms still wrapped tightly around me. I felt her gently stroking my hair between her fingers and I felt her lips on top of my head. "I love you, Peeta," she whispered.
"I love you, too," I whispered back, holding onto her tightly as she held me.
"Get some sleep, mo ghaol . We've got the rest of our lives now." I had already felt myself nodding off before she even said that, and with her permission, I closed my eyes and fell soundly asleep listening to the beat of her heart.
A/N: What do you think Mrs. Mellark is hiding, and why is she hiding it? Is it the cause of the evident tension between herself and her sister?
Please review!