Song Suggestion: Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michelson—"Winter Song"
Thank You: Talon-Murtagh-Yassen-Sirius, slightlytwisted84, 3vlee, Lucy Greenhill, SergeantJohnston, Rachel, HeyBirdy, and five Guests!
Burning Cold
Prim jerked awake. The fire was out. She didn't have much hope for it lasting long anyway, since the number of dry sticks had a limit. Daylight filtered through the edge where the snow couldn't cover. Prim groggily lifted herself, stretching her arms over her head. Her back cracked, and her neck ached, the results of sleeping on stone.
Prim glanced through her peephole outside. Small flurries of snow still floated down in a gentle dance, twirling and swirling until they landed on the blanket of white. It was as if God flicked a new sheet over the world.
The cold seeped into the shelter, wrapped around her bones, sent a tingle down her veins into her extremities. Prim curled her fingers under her coat to get warm. She could barely bend them.
"Wake up, Katla. It's beautiful."
Silence answered her. Prim glanced down at the girl, taking in her appearance. Her lips, pink and rosy last night, were a dark purple. Prim shook her shoulder. Her skin ice to the touch under her hands.
"Oh no," Prim's heart dropped to her toes, "Oh no."
In panic, she shook harder to try and garner a response. She had lain on her side, and when Prim moved her shoulders, her head flopped back against the stone, unconscious to pain. Prim's two fingers wedged themselves under her throat, trying to feel for the thump of life.
A little flutter under her digits. A sigh of relief rushed out of Prim's lungs in a long, slow wheeze. But the relief was short-lasting.
She was alive, but not for long. Not if she stayed as cold as she was.
Prim's attention went back to the fire. She touched the ashes and hissed in pain, retracting her finger as if a snake bit it. She sucked on the burn for a moment, admonishing herself for her stupidity. Of course the ashes were still hot, though they looked dead. With one of the sticks she deemed too "wet" last night, she poked the remaining lumps of wood left. Under the backside, one of them cracked with spots of red and orange, glowing in the limited light. She poked them to try and extract warmth, but it snapped and crackled and died down, as if it opened an eye, and seeing it was daylight, went back to sleep.
"Damn it," Prim whispered into the hazy grey that surrounded her. She was a healer. She was supposed to know how to fix Katla.
Prim made up her mind, nodding to no one, and shrugged out of her overcoat. She couldn't stop the shivers that overtook her body, but welcomed them at the same time. She still felt the sting of cold and that meant life. She would be more worried if she was numb to it. She flung her coat over Katla, who let out a little whimper from the frozen purgatory of her unconscious state. She tucked the edges around her shoulder, cursing herself for her selflessness, while another violent shiver overtook her.
If they were to survive past the next day and night, they'd need fire. It would be the only thing strong enough to battle hypothermia, especially a case as advanced as Katla's.
However, body heat could also be effective.
Her decisions jumped back and forth, and she placed her head in her hands in frustration. She wanted her mother. She would know what to do to save Katla. She wanted Katniss. She would know what to do to save herself. Instead, she was alone, and the weight of another life hung on her shoulders.
Is this how Katniss felt with me?
After an eternity, Prim made up her mind. She began to knock down the snow walls they meticulously made the night before. Body heat would be a good solution, but fire would be long term.
"Stay alive," Prim whispered to an unconscious Katla.
Katla shivered in response.
Ten Minutes Later
Prim made it one hundred feet in search of firewood. One hundred feet and she fell and twisted her ankle in a hole. She heard a sharp pop, and it dropped her. Her body collapsed into the snow, and she knew she would die. Alone. She attempted to drag herself back to the mouth of the cave, to Katla, to the only source of warmth and life in the woods. She was able to scrape by on her elbows and knees. Each movement sent a shock of pain up her leg, and it reverberated into every bone in her body.
What was worse is that Katla would die for sure now too. And it was all Prim's fault. She made the wrong decision. She should have stayed in the cave. No, she corrected herself, she should have stayed at Cato's. When she escaped, she felt a sweet sense of defiance. Now she just felt cold, numb... stupid. Was freedom worth a life?
Prim had her doubts as the cold crept through her clothes. It took her a moment for her to realize that her clothes, dried from the fire, were once again soaked from sliding through the snow. There was just a thin piece of wet fabric between her fragile skin and the ground that wished to blacken it.
"Oh God," she whispered into the ground, unsure if there was such a being. She rolled on her back in defeat.
She glanced at the underside of trees. The trees groaned under the weight of the burdens. The branches sagged to the ground packed with snow.
Nature mocked her whimpers of pain.
Hours Later
Prim stayed in that position, waiting for her death. Out of all the ways she imagined to die, this had never factored into one. The longer she lay there the more she accepted it.
At least it was from my own hand, she couldn't help but think. Maybe that was a small victory against the boy who always won.
The person who said freezing to death was a good way to die never froze to death. Every cell in her body cried from the pain she couldn't escape. She waited for the numbness the stories touted, but found only a sharp awareness, a conscious feeling of her organs shriveling into themselves trying to find the heat that fed them.
The thirst was what surprised her the most. Here, surrounded by frozen water, her throat cried for its sustaining liquid. It was cruel torture, because Prim knew that to eat or drink the snow in its current form would only hasten her demise. It took her a couple hours before she gave in. She grabbed a handful of snow. It looked pure, having just fallen. She brought it to her lips and crunched down. The relief it brought was tempered by the pain of her teeth, sensitive to the cold. Tears escaped her eyes, and she could have sworn they stuck to her cheeks before they could drip off.
Her last conscious thought was of Katla. It was a wish.
She hoped her new friend passed without the pain she felt. She wished for nature to take its course swiftly.
Unknown Time Later
She dreamed of Katniss holding her in their old bed the night before the reaping. Katniss brushed her hair, held her close. In the morning, she pushed the back of her dress back into her skirt.
"Tuck your tail in little duck." It turned into an echo in her mind.
Fire inched across her body. She was on fire. Her body burned. How could it burn when she felt so cold? Were the two extremes, in the end, the same?
"Primrose Everdeen." Her name was called, but Katniss couldn't save her this time. Prim walked on stage and took her rightful place.
The white floated around her, little flakes sticking to her cheeks, frozen tears. Frozen in time, away from ticking clocks.
Cato stood above her on the cornucopia with a sword in hand. The tip slashed at her throat. She felt the wound bubbling, boiling over. The fire streaming out, leaving her colder as it leaked. He had finally done it. Done what he was meant to do. The natural order of things. She expected to hear the words out of his mouth about little birds deserving to die. But he looked at her sadly, as if about to cry. He dropped to his knees and attempted to put the blood back into the wound. Blood spalshed across his face, tinging his fair hair crimson.
"Forgive me," he begged.
But she would not give it. Not to him.
Unknown Time Later
The next image felt real. It took a minute for Prim to sort reality from fantasy, dream from nightmare before she realized that her eyes were open.
It was real. She at first thought it to be a bear, but a bear didn't stay walking upright for that long.
It was human, a man.
He stood on top of the hill, glancing down at the landscape. He was far enough away that she doubted he saw her small form on the ground. He turned, as if he was done looking. He was going to leave. Prim was overwhelmed with a feeling of loneliness. Now offered a chance at survival, her body flailed, using her remaining energy to get his attention.
She croaked out something. Not words, just a noise.
The man seemed to start. He shielded his eyes and peered down again, as if unable to believe it.
"Holy shit!" The man screamed, "Cato, I found them."
The bear-man ambled down the hill, running fast, until he bent over scooping her upper body into his arms, separating it from the snow. She hung limp, her arms dangling outward. The fur that she thought was a bear, turned out to be a heavy fur coat. Tips of golden hair flared out from under a matching bear skin hat, the flaps tied under his chin. It would look humorous if she wasn't so envious of the protection they provided. Brown eyes stared at her, with permanent circles etched under them. He glanced at her with a frown, then glanced around her body in frantic jerks. He shook her shoulders a little.
"God dammit, Prim. Where is she?" His voice sounded hysterical.
Dead, she wanted to answer, but nothing came out. She had to be dead by now. It took all she had to lift her eyes and look over at the overhang. He had to see interpret what she was trying to tell him. Prim hadn't gotten out of sight of their cave in her search for firewood for the fear of not being able to find her way back.
He seemed to understand. For he lowered her body back into the snow and sprinted away, his footsteps crunching into the snow..
I'm sorry, she wanted to cry after him. I destroyed her wall of warmth. She couldn't dig out of the cold like the dogs.
Another crunch of snow came next, slow, precise. It did not run. Then the shadow came. It blocked the sun. She blinked, trying to adjust her eyes. Her retinas dilated enough for her to see another man staring down at her. His blue eyes glowed against the reflecting white of the snow. The area around his mouth was raw and red and iced snow clung to the prickles of hair on his chin.
He leaned down and slid his hands under her back and under her knees, picking her body up from the snow, separating her from death. Her body had just started to become numb, but with the movement, her cells sprung back to attention, sending signals down her nerve endings.
She cried out in pain. His brow furrowed.
"I'm dying," she managed to get out, trying to explain. It felt good to share her fear aloud.
"I forbid you to."
As if either of them had any control over it.
Cato wore a fur coat as well, like Hannibal. Bear's fur. When he picked her up, he held her to his chest and after opening the coat, he enveloped her in its warmth. She laid her head against his heart, counting the beats. His actions were slow, but his heart beat fast. The sound comforted her. In all the world, there was nothing more comforting than the sound of another life nearby. She snuggled closer to the warmth, the invisible fire under his skin. It was a frantic burrowing. She had to get warm; she had to weld them together. Her hand found the edge of his shirt and slipped underneath, resting along the taut ridges.
He hissed, but didn't try to remove her hands. He only held her tighter to himself.
"Your hands are ice."
She was sure by now they were. The blood must have frozen long ago. His skin was glorious. The heat felt like magic, like love. Close to death, she no longer care how she acted. She let out a long moan.
He lowered his chin till it rested on the top of her head.
"That was stupid," he whispered into her hair, "That was so fucking stupid."
Prim glanced up at him. He searched her face, and there was no way she could read his thoughts.
"You saved me."
It was funny that the man she ran from would be the one who would scoop her up from death's door. He was supposed to be her monster, not her hero, but she was so grateful to be out of the cold, out of danger, it did funny things to her head.
Cato snorted.
"I'm no hero. You've reminded me of that plenty."
"You were mine today."
Cato stopped in his tracks. His expression betrayed his surprise, as if he had never been called a hero before. A cold wind blew, ruffling his hair. A small smile tugged at his mouth, and he bent his head.
His lips touched hers, melting the ice from them. The kiss somehow felt different from the others, devoid of his usual force. There was a taint to it, resembling sorrow, filled with anger, but most of all she felt his fear.
"Don't ever do that to me again."
She just nodded, falling asleep against him, for the first time feeling safe in his arms