Quick update: No, I am not dead, but finals nearly killed me. I'm very grateful to all of you for remaining patient and supportive while I so rudely left you hanging. My beautiful betas are working hard to help me move this story along, so look forward to another chapter soon!

For now, a belated Christmas present to my wonderful readers. XO Maybe my New Year's resolution will be scheduling posts - bahahaha, never.

Anyways, read on.

Wednesday, 3rd week of November, 73rd Winter Anno Nix

Darius, pt. 1:

That she arrives is not in itself surprising to Darius. If he were to rank today's events from predictable to shit-yourself-shocking, Katniss' arrival wouldn't even make it on the list. Which is fine. The list is much too long anyways for a single Wednesday afternoon. He's wondered four times already if being intoxicated on duty is worth the night shifts he'll be dispensed as punishment. And it's only 11am.

The fact of the matter is, District 12 is not a surprising place. Sure, there are the black markets and illegal whores and wild corruption on every side, but there is a structure and a pattern and a shape to everything that Darius has come to expect. Like the constant clanking of the mine shafts, there is a consoling truth in the ugliness of the circumstances, that nothing has changed and nothing will change – even if it should.

So, no. It does not surprise him that Katniss Everdeen, in all her tiny turbulent glory, steps in to save the boy's back.

What does surprise him is the splattering of said boy's blood all over his garrison window, feathered in perfect ruby plumes with each stroke of the Keeper's cuff. There isn't even a rill of light to the morning yet, but blushing welts bloom full and heavy across the horizons of Gale's cheeks.

"Cragging stone – what are you doing?" Darius moves to pull the officer off the boy, ignoring his three cohorts flocked together, bloody talons and thorny beaks. "Don't you know who this is? Ore of hell, Minos, have you gone mad?"

The ruckus-riled officer shrugs, spiting in his direction, "Followin' orders, Tinderbox. Go start a fire elsewhere."

Darius bristles at the nickname. Letting the hot simmer of resentment ruffle his ego, he maneuvers his body in a gallant attempt to block the next blow. Years of training tell him it is hopeless, but years of bantering with this boy under the crass glares of Hob lamps and stall venders tell him it is necessary. And right, but that has never been a part of his job description.

The fist hits him brazenly across the jaw, exactly as he predicted. On the ensuing tide of pain, Darius shoves up and out, a violent thrust that sends Minos reeling against the opposite wall. His cronies fidget restlessly with gore-stained cudgels, eyeing their burly comrade for approval. It won't matter that Darius ranks two titles above them, nor that he's got Cray's ear when he listens – four against one is never a fair match.

He slips a hand under Gale's arm and helps him stand. The boy's a good fighter. Darius has broken up enough of his scraps to recognize the ireful roots of a hard-lined hero. Men like these begin as hapless seeds, nurtured slowly by some despotic rain, and grow into deep-rooted oaks with proud limbs built for battle-scars. It's not their fault their branches lure the lumberjacks with eager axes. Their wood burns best.

Even now, collapsed against the brick wall and coughing blood through every orifice, he manages to look at Darius with one good eye, bold and daring.

He would have made an exemplary Peacekeeper, Darius thinks wryly to himself, a Capitol Peacekeeper, maybe for the Game Rooms. Maybe for the President himself.

And a part of him delights in the reversal of situations and the unfairness of everything despite.

"Oi, Matchface, interference of Capitol directives is a punishable crime. You gonna step aside and let me follow commands, or do I have to hit your pretty little face again?" Minos's gloves creak louder than his voice.

But Darius gives a disdainful little laugh that sounds deceptively confident. "And whose commands would that be? I trust Cray's taste for turkey much more than your waste of words any day. He'd never condone this."

"Maybe not," a voice rasps behind him, "But I do."

As a man stalks out of the barrack's alley door, Darius recalls the pearl-plumed egrets who haunt the district's skies in spring. With his crisp Peacekeeper attire, bleached and bloodless, this stranger announces his foreign-ness louder than any mine blast. The regimentals of District 12 are shades of grey: the longer one is posted here, the greyer one gets, with Old Cray a black pearl amongst them all.

The man struts on wiry legs towards Daruis. "Do you know what else is a punishable crime? Poaching. As is illegal possession of stolen goods and any attempts to sell such goods to Capitol attendants. This yardbird here is guilty on all accounts. All that's left for him to do is confess his crimes and accept his punishment."

Gale stirs beside the wall, "I didn't –"

Minos drives a fist into his stomach, buckling him speechless.

"Let him talk," the gaunt peacekeeper says, turning his angular face towards Gale. This man is all corners, sharp and cuttingly precise.

"I didn't," he pants past the pain and spurts blood, "I didn't poach anything. I was making a delivery. Cray knew. He knew – I was coming."

The peacekeeper saunters over, beady eyes amused by his victim's misery. He pulls Gale up by a fistful of hair and presses a forearm against his throat.

"Pity that wasn't the confession I was looking for, boy. But let's see if I can persuade you otherwise. Officer Arris, identify this criminal."

The fragile officer hidden in the doorway contorts his pock-marked face into an awkward apology before stuttering, "G-Gale Hawthorne. I believe."

Darius shuts his eyes and curses mentally. Of course, Cliff Arris would be pulled into this: the whore's son from District 2 who's afraid of his own piss tinkling in the bucket at night. He hasn't kept a full bottle of miner's brew down in the three weeks he's been stationed here.

"Details on his family."

Gale's eyes turn to wet river rocks. He struggles a bit for air.

"Uh…" Arris squints at the ledger in his hand, "Father deceased, mother employed as a washerwoman, two brothers aged thirteen and nine, sister aged three. Shanty 47, sector 9."

The forearm presses harder. "I wonder how they'd like a visit from the Capitol, eh?" He snarls at Minos and his crew, "You four, escort the Hawthorne family into a private cell. Don't bother with the spacious one – they won't be staying long."

Minos picks up his broken baton from the cobblestones and motions for the others to follow him, away from the slowly suffocating boy and his spitting assailant.

"Here's how we'll play, you worthless filth." Spew flies from needle-thin lips, "You confess and your family goes free, or I'll let you watch as I carve them up one by one, until there's nothing left but fingers and earlobes for you to keep as a token of the Capitol's justice."

Gale glares wicked hot into his assailant's black eyes. Darius doesn't breathe.

"I'm not bluffing."

His gaze flashes to the five white uniforms tramping down the alley. Dawn's first embers catch like wildfire on their silver switchblades.

Five more seconds and Darius' throat burns while Gale's lips turn blue.

Seven. Arris looks like he's guzzled ten bottles of miner's brew.

Nine. Minos is almost at the end of the alley.

Twelve. The snow is swooping, the crows are croaking, everything slows and stings and–

"Wait."

Gale's strangled plea is barely audible. The silver-haired man retracts his arm and lets him tumble to the ground, choking on air.

"I confess… I confess. Call them back, I confess."

A crawling smile, bleak as the morning air, creeps like hoar-frost onto the peacekeeper's face. He barks down the corridor, "Get back here." Eight boots shatter ice underfoot. "Tie this criminal up in the town square. He deserves a proper whipping, this one."

Darius' mouth gapes, incoherent as a snapped-neck bird before he sputters, "You-you can't do that. You don't have the authority – only Cray dispenses punishments."

At this, the foreigner turns to Darius.

Minos and his company pause in morbid curiosity.

"What's your name, officer?"

"It's Lieutenant. Lieutenant Ashlar."

The smile cracks wider. "Well, lieutenant, allow me to introduce myself. My name is CommanderRomulus Thread and I have every authority to dispense punishments on whomever I see fit. Including lieutenants."

Darius' eyes pull. He fights against the jagged bite of worry and takes a breath.

"Where's Cray?"

He knows, of course, where he is. He's had his schedule memorized since he was twenty-years old in a snow-white uniform and shoe-shined boots.

5:46am. Leaves his private shack in the Seam quarter and rewards each dark, defiled waif a silver piece each.

6am. Wanders to the black market to buy two bottles of white liquor and steal three kisses from the pig-man's squealing daughter.

6:22am. Drinks one bottle in the mule shelter. Pulls a dagger on anyone who disturbs him.

10am. Change of shift. Stumbles back to barracks. Drinks second bottle in office, locked.

But listening now, the groaning bed springs of last night's evening patrol do not harmonize with Cray's drunken crooning. Instead, the slam of his office door is replaced by vulgar cursing and splintering wood.

Arris jumps out of the doorway as a rabble of Peacekeepers drag Cray outside, deflecting his inebriated attempts at self-defense.

"Commander Cray," Thread crows tactlessly, "I apologize for this brief intrusion of your day. I assure you, all will be explained shortly."

He leans in close and wrinkles his nose against the sterile alcohol fumes, "In the meanwhile, however, you will not be needing this."

Nimbly, he plucks the Commander Peacekeeper's insignia, a golden Capitol seal crowned by twelve stars, and pins it to his own chest. "Take them both."

Nobody objects.

Darius stands dumbfounded while Cray is ushered towards Town, meek as a maiden being led to the whorehouse.

Minos grabs the scruff of Gale's shirt and hauls him upright. As they pass by, Gale looks up and catches Darius' eye, staring with all the earnestness of a weathered oak, steadfast to the end.

They herd him away with shoves and insults, Seam-scum, coal cur, bastard. There seems to be an endless supply of cutting words with which these men have armed themselves. But Darius does not see a bloodied boy or convicted criminal. Instead, he beholds a tree full-reamed, its proud limbs hacked cruelly off and the broken trail of things unsaid crying wrong, wrong, wrong in sticky drops of sap.

It doesn't occur to him until later that he should be surprised she wasn't there.

A barracks visit from a certain raven-haired girl is as much a district drill as stabilizing mine collapses or burying tribute coffins. There are definite steps and procedures to follow, rules to respect, knuckles to fear should you stare too long.

Darius doesn't condemn his colleagues for gawking moon-eyed at the windows when she walks by. He might do the same if he hadn't experienced the sound of her laugh or the slip of smile in her eyes when he jokes with her. Still, celibacy is a Capitol-sworn oath and not even Old Cray is bold enough to break their vows so blatantly as to conduct his pleasures at the barracks. Any babe-faced officer can spot the prying eyes of the Capitol blinking steadily red in every garrison corner.

Of course, there are some places where the fall of Snow never settles. Places like the Hob and the slag heap, even the electrical shack, where dark girls flock like magpies in the cold. Birds with inky feathers and bashful little beaks that want nothing more than a night under the warmth of another man's wings. They are cheap and eager and plentiful, but none of them are Katniss.

The eldest Everdeen girl bears all the marks of a thoroughbred Seam woman: dark skin, black hair, flashing granite eyes. But with an elegance that would give District 5's geneticists wet-dreams, the clever observer can detect hints of her mother's exiled origins. From the endearing wisps of curl at her brow to the delicacy of her facial features, Katniss' slender figure contrasts the wide-set jaws and broadened hips which better-acclimated Seam women in their survival of life's constant demands. There was nothing beautiful about survival until Katniss came along.

She's a child still, really, and it bothers him that already men eye her with less than friendly glances. To them, she's nothing more than a challenge that can be won with a few tantalizing coins or a tight grip. Yet something restrains the urges of his comrades, apart from Gale Hawthorne's dependable fists.

Katniss possesses a graceful authority over the people she meets, imparts an unspeakable feeling of safety or assuredness that leaves you with the sickly-sweet aftertaste of hope, reminiscent of some childhood medicine. Miraculously, even the lewdest of the officers, even Cray himself, leaves her untouched.

She sells to Cray by herself. The first time Darius witnesses her routine, he peeks a second time, as much in shock as it is a chance to look at her again. She walks alone up the alley, single-handedly carting a turkey over her shoulder, and knocks brazenly on the alley-door of the garrison. He's only been in District 12 a few months, but it's enough to determine that she and the boy are inseparable. It is unsettling to see the young girl without him by her side, something akin to losing one's shadow.

Darius hurries the door open and stares at her. "What are you doing here?" he hisses.

She looks calmly back, as if he hadn't just teased her last night about the mathematical probability of eyeballs floating in her soup.

"I'm here fer Cray." She raises her eyebrows a little to settle her intent.

"For Cray?" He feels his chest tightening, because he hadn't thought, well he didn't expect, no one had told him to anticipate this and he was still reeling, really, from her death. He had finally found some normalcy here and was able to sleep a handful of nights without missing his family, his home, his… her, and this girl before him was helping him forget, or maybe making him remember, because they're the same, but different and… Great scree. What is he supposed to do?

"Cray? You… you're not supposed to come here for... Craggum, how old are you?"

She only gazes steadily into his face, quipping, "You're new here. I'm lookin' fer Cray."

It isn't a question or a demand, but Darius knocks on Cray's office door nonetheless, hating himself when his voice falls flat and indifferent, a model example of the blind obedience the Capitol so applauds.

He averts his eyes when Cray approaches the door licking his lips, and hides in his barracks because he already knows why girls come looking for Cray. He'd heard rumors about their ages, but he hadn't imagined anything below fourteen – he hadn't imagined her.

He's sitting on his bed with bile in his throat when he sees him: a flickering shadow outside the corner window, straight spine and fidgeting fists with triggers in his eyes as he peeks down the long brick alleyway. The boy. Her boy.

The door clanks shut and Cray slips to the galley with a burlap bundle cradled drunkenly in his arms, leaving feather footprints in his wake.

Chirrups of the duo's conversation seep through the window cracks.

"Got twelve coin – and I didn't even pluck 'im." Proud and gloating.

"I still don't like it." Wary and begrudging. "S'not worth the risk."

"You wouldn't say that if it were you. And he saw you around the corner, anyway. Not like you were bein' subtle."

"Well, neither was he, the way he looked at you."

She huffs, "He looked at the turkey more than anythin' else. Relax, Gale."

The boy responds with a resigned grunt, but his fingers crack from the tightness of his fists. At the end of the day, a coin is a coin and a turkey a turkey, and pride or affection have no hold in whether you live another day.

So, no. It does not surprise him that Katniss Everdeen, in all her elegant élan, steps in to save the boy's back.

What does surprise him is the strength with which the past echoes back, playing memories of another life, another crime, another boy. There's a million worlds rehearsing within his mind where only one should exist. But between the endless cosmos, he struggles to find enough air. All he hears is gasping.

It's for this reason that Darius hates the pitiful surprise he feels at Cray's demise. He's seen it a million times already. The fact that they share blood is condemning enough evidence of an abrupt and bitter end. Still, the warmth of his uncle's life seeping into the soles of his boots burns more than he anticipated.

And yet it's nothing compared to the boy. Cliff and stones, it aches. The look in his eyes is enough to ruin Darius. It stirs up childhood demons – nightmares of boys with death in their eyes; some who crave it senselessly, as if they are born to die in such a sickly lurid manner that the Capitolites feel bits of brain matter splat at them through the screen projectors; others who are bewildered by it up until the familiar stars dim. There is only one in Darius' memory who is expecting death – expecting Darius.

Now he adds one more boy to that list, because it is hard to ignore the grim salute to darkness in Gale's eyes that says, Hello, old friend, what took you so long?

It cuts him with every snap of the whip, this smothered past. As much as he tries to repress the uprising of memories, he's ill-suited for the heat of a riot and finds himself slowly succumbing to the whisperings of the dead.

She is his undoing, the final stroke that renders him senseless. How he knows those determined eyes and that hand stretched out in desperation, the pleading, Stopstopstop –

"STOP!"

Time passes slower than he remembers. Or at least, he thinks he recalls a time when today is separate from yesterday and the conflict surrounding him has clear-cut villains and heroes. In this moment, it's hard to remember which he is and which he isn't.

The click of the gun reminds him well enough.

She stands there, letting the steely-eyed barrel of a .22 riot pistol stare her down. And she looks calmly back, as if she hadn't just challenged seventy-three years of meticulously controlled Capitol monocracy, small and blood-slicked in her partner's pools of life. She stands there as if nothing in any existing world could come between them – two dark orphans yoked by the same burden. And here, their final testimony: not even death will daunt them.

That, Darius supposes, is the uniqueness of Katniss Everdeen. She is so impulsively brave that others can't help but reciprocate her courage, if only to bask in the warmth of her fire. The square is pulsing with it:

A bakery boy struggles in the crowd and shouts her name.

A Seam boy, creeping carefully back to his miresome mines, halts and turns slowly back around.

A blaze-haired peacekeeper grips his commander's gory uniform and whispers warningly, "You have no idea, the effect she can have."

When he shoots, she is as radiant as the sun.

Five months before Darius was castigated a position in District 12, the Morey-Thompson mines erupted in the biggest event of firedamp known to Panem. They say the flames were visible from the town-square, high-arching and ascending like a hawk-cry sighting prey.

The children were in school. When Darius asks how many, the number is vague, an irrelevant amount. He imagines the mining children streaming out, a wave of grey eyes welled with fear, huddling in the schoolyard to catch a glimpse of the blaze. Already, most of them never expect to see their fathers again.

From the way the senior officers describe it, the mining accident was inconceivable. But there are a few, at least, who predicted a casualty at some point. There was something in the air, the winter weather, the way the workmen gaggled in groups before the pits opened every morning. Something in the way they watched one miner, in particular, eyeing him with all the respect of a true-born leader, anticipating his smallest gesture as if to one day surge forward and cry:

"No right! No justice!"

"Down with the peace!"

Today it is snowing. And the miners have finally revolted.

In a flurry of sooty wings and rattling beaks, the grimy flock of Seam folk, men and women alike, descend upon the Peacekeepers. They strike with all the savagery of maddened starlings, inky-black in their rage. The Peacekeepers, though the bigger of the species, quiver on fragile, stilted legs, futilely dodging the stones and rubble of their aggressors. Still, far-flung lumps of coal and slag mark targets on their pale uniforms. It would be comical to witness, had not Darius the same long legs and matching plumage, dreary white as an egret in mourning. He is the enemy here, the hunter hunted.

Head low and eyes roving, Darius rustles through the assembly of panicky officers. Arris' voice, a thin, reedy call some notes above the others, reaches his ears.

"Darius! Darius –"

The lines of white uniforms crash together as the miners meet them head on, bricks and fists a-swinging. Turmoil sews its rambling seeds and confusion flourishes. A cry from above draws Darius' attention to the rooftops, where nimble young starlings, too young yet to fly about, but dark and indignant all the same, have climbed the ramparts, hurling debris into the swirling whiteness below.

"Ashlar!" A shoulder locks next to his, armor clanking. Darius barely recognizes Arris – some well-aimed missile has struck his temple, streaming blood down his face and tinting his straggly blonde hair shades of rose. "You got a helmet, mate? I didn't figure we'd be doing much in the way of fighting…"

Above Arris' shouts, Minos' voice cuts through the ruckus like glass on marble, crunching, biting, sharp. The whipping post looms large.

"Hey, get away from there. You can't – "

Ten years of Capitol servitude have learned Darius the rule of speed over size, so it takes him two less breaths then it should to rip Arris' cudgel from his belt and race forward, swinging a wide arc at the back of Minos' head. It's a revolt of his own, he supposes, as the blunt bat strikes skull, that he turn his Capitol-honed skills against its own. But fitting, too, he thinks, while digging his fingers hungrily beneath the collarbone, chewing on sensitive nerves until the blood flow weakens. Hadn't the Capitol done the same to him?

As Minos topples to the ground, a scrawny Seam boy looks up from sawing Gale's ropes, blood licking his hands along the sharp edges of his tool. Deep in Darius' consciousness, another boy asks:

I knew you'd come… I knew you'd come. What took you so long?

He pulls out the knife at his waist, suddenly needle-tipped and reproachful, and nearly staggers with the weight of its memory. The knife leaves his grasp with a neat throw. Words leave his throat with the voices of the past.

'You shouldn't let them see you like this.'

"Best not let them see you with that –"

'Be quick about it then. Do it.'

"– so be quick about it."

I'll find you outside the garden then? Remember, we used to hide in the rain barrels.

"I'll find it in a powder barrel outside the Hob."

When the mob swallows up the sight of Katniss easing Gale's body to the ground, delicate as a flower stooping with dew, the ghosts of latter years pull him to the familiar alleyways, crusted over with glacier diamonds.

He sits and catches his breath.

"Lieutenant Ashlar?" The voice comes haunting, sweetly soft.

"Lieutenant Ashlar. Are you –"

Darius scales the icy tentacles of the wall, rising startled to his feet. A sugar-faced Merchant girl perches hesitantly to his right, red cheeks kissing her pearly skin. To his relief, she seems firmly grounded in reality. If her steaming breaths sifting through the snowfall don't give her away, then her palpable apprehension of the turmoil just beyond certainly does.

"Are you all right, Lieutenant Ashlar? Are you hurt?" She sways uncertain in her place.

Darius nods once before he finds his voice. "I'm, uh, ahem. I'm fine, thank you. Are you… What are you doing here, Ms. Undersee? You shouldn't –"

She flitters towards him and pushes a cold, metal box into his arms, stammering with the brisk manner of a Capitol attendant's daughter and a foolish girl without her coat. "I need you to take these to her. You musn't tell my father, only take these and make sure he's alright."

Her blue eyes water as she dances backward, but Darius catches a frozen hand and stays her. "Hold there! You can't be walking by yourself. I'll escort you back to –"

She shakes her curls, steeping the air with heated hair appliances and wallpapered rooms. "I walked here by myself, didn't I?" she says fiercely, "Just take these to the Everdeens and keep it to yourself."

She leaves behind a trail of furtive footsteps.

Swearing, Darius creaks open the box's rusty hinges to peer inside. A handful of tiny translucent vials, crystalline etched with chemical symbols, sleep like winter peepers atop a snowy, satin cloth.

He recognizes the morphling almost immediately, though in all his years, he hasn't seen a medicine of equal grade anywhere near District Twelve. Painkillers are manufactured in Six, where, after filtering through the factory's addicts who swallow vials whole and regurgitate their contraband at home, the pharmaceuticals are distributed to the Capitol first and then the Career Districts. As the disappointing step-child of President Snow, District Twelve has no chance of obtaining such leisurely expensive drugs, not even the Mayor.

Darius tucks the smuggled goods into his armor and vacates to the Seam, ducking into doorways and snaking through sewers as he skirts the chaos of the square. He emerges breathless and dismayed at the scene laid out before him.

Along the puckered gusset of Town and Seam, several teams of Peacekeepers are busily nailing wooden house slats together to form rickety barricades. The hedge families, those who live forever kissing the feet of their Merchant neighbors, watch desolately in the streets as their homes are demolished piece by piece. A mother calls out somewhere close.

"Please! Please, we have nowhere to go! My children will freeze to death. Have you no pity? Please, I beg you! Let us be!"

Darius slinks behind the wails of her dark-haired children, all three of them owl-eyed, howling in the cold. The oldest girl, a grim little owlet no older than ten, wrestles her baby brother, barefooted and screeching with hunger.

He feels shamefaced for using their misfortune as camouflage, but he's relieved, too, to be trading their piercing distress for the Seam's shushing stillness. He gets lost among the shanties and arrives at the Everdeens by accident. But then, it is hard to ignore the carmine tears decorating the porch steps. He knocks synchronically with his scattered heartbeat.

Voices percolate through the frail walls before the knob judders and the door gapes just enough to fit the scrawny shoulders of the boy from the square. He stares at Darius with eyes that would curse if they spoke. Surprisingly, his first words are not profanities.

"What d'you want." He orders the question, demands an answer.

"I need to speak with Katniss Everdeen. She lives at this residence." A phrase formulated with all the professionalism of a dutifully detached Peacekeeper. Perfect.

" 'bout what?" The door squeezes tighter.

"Private matters, nothing that concerns you."

The Seam boy glares darkly.

Darius sighs. "Listen, is she capable of coming to the door? If not, I'll go in myself."

At this the bitter youth shuts the door forcefully. Briefly, Darius thinks he might be denied his request and left to stand on the porch for the remainder of the day. But now the knob trembles again and there she is, pale and wobbly with flower-petal bruises unfurling. Yet that stubborn gaze stands firm.

Her scowl falters when she sees him. "Darius?" She quickly draws the door closed and folds her arms against the cold. "What are you doing here?" she hisses.

"I, uh, I just…" he realizes too late that he hasn't prepared anything to say. I'm sorry? Where were you this morning? Is he dead?

"Are you okay?" he blurts.

She deadpans her face, though her gaze still flashes angry and bright. "Why wouldn't I be?" she spits, "I wasn't the one who got flailed within an inch of my life."

Darius shakes his head wryly, "No, that's right. You were just the one to get shot. I told him there'd be a riot if he hurt you."

Katniss' hand finds the bandage bullet wound and winces discreetly. She looks down. "Did you know? About the Head?"

"No. No, of course not. They didn't tell anyone – not even Cray. If I had known…" Darius isn't quite sure what he would've done if he had known.

She nods, stiff and unreadable, as snow swirls around the porch. His throat swells with emotion, but there are not enough words to speak.

Gradually, the morphling case grows cold against his skin and he brandishes it hastily, explaining, "The Undersee girl gave this to me. For Gale."

Katniss' expression creases with confusion. "What is it?" she asks, staring at the glass vials and their tapering needles.

"Morphling. It's a Capitol painkiller. I had no idea District 12 got shipments of this – it's outrageously expensive, even in the Career Districts. I can't even fathom the distribution cost the Mayor must have paid to get it here."

Katniss bites her lip, contemplating the gift. "Madge gave this to you?" she inquires suspiciously.

Darius raises his eyebrows, "Do you know her?"

She confirms with a stern nod, then adds more gently, "We sell her strawberries in the spring."

He knows he shouldn't say it, that's she's sensitive about these things and it isn't based in any truth. But the tensions of the day fall off him in large flakes of callous sarcasm and relentless teasing. It has always been his way.

"She must have quite a taste for strawberries."

There. Her face sours at the implication and it feels like last week, when she was balanced on Sae's counter, her braid in his hand and her eyes rolling at his jokes. Until he recognizes her in the laughter, the dimpled smile, the way she tilts her head starry-eyed. So, he bites the jugular just to see her squirm. He says something like: You should pay me for one of my kisses, you know. Green-muffler over there did – two rabbits. I'll discount you one since it's your first. And then she squirms and the boy bristles and Sae snorts, and he is satisfied that nothing reminds him of her in that moment.

Finally, Katniss meets his eyes again, bridled. "They shouldn't see you here. Probably get you in trouble."

A grimace crosses Darius' face as he touches the tender discoloring around his chin. "I already am, I expect." Her brows pull down. "I tried to stop them. Before…"

Clear understanding softens her features. For a moment, she stares at him with ponderous eyes. Then, reverently, solemnly, she traces the fist-shaped welt on his jaw with tender, scarred fingers, trembling a bit at the meaning of it all. She swallows thickly and captures his gaze in hers, murmuring hoarsely, "Thank you… Darius."

He is too stunned to respond. Instead, he gapes a little at her intensity before backing slowly down the steps, only to slip on the last one, shattering the spell with comical abruptness. Nodding dutifully to her, he remembers his patrol knife somewhere at the bottom of a powder barrel. His voice carries over his shoulder, "Tell your friend he can keep the knife."

The raven-haired girl shakes her head. "It's not for him."

With a strength that flows from the deepest caverns of his mind, he answers, "Me, neither."

The day's ghosts bubble up, straining against the white bars of his uniform until he feels it rip and stretch as they break free, smothering him with their familiar haunts and predictable mementos. When the Capitol-crafted shell of a Peacekeeper falls like so many birds in a thunderstorm, Darius thinks he can see the little quarry boy of a decade-past life scampering about the skeleton of him, exploring the bones of what he might be.

Overproof.

A/N :

I'm not a curser, myself, in real life, so I've tried to give Darius, who grew up among crude, foul-mouthed men (who did fouler things with their bodies) a regional vernacular for swearing – one that didn't involve too many actual swear words. All of these words are derived from District 2 masonry/stone terms:

Cragging Stone – crag is a steep, rugged cliff or rockface

Ore of Hell – ore is a naturally occurring solid material from which a metal or valuable mineral can be profitably extracted

Great Scree – scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, volcanoes or valley shoulders that has accumulated through periodic rockfall from adjacent cliff faces

Craggum – derived from cragged, which means a steep rugged mass of rock projecting upward or outward

Cliff and stones – well, this one's obvious 😉

Cliff Arris gets his name from the masonry term arris – a natural or applied line on the stone from which all leveling and plumbing are measured.

Darius' last name is Ashlar, which means an individual stone that has been worked until squared or the masonry built of such stone. It is the finest stone masonry unit, generally cuboid, mentioned by Vitruvius as opus isodomum, or less frequently trapezoidal. ~ Wikipedia

I would love to talk with you in the comments!

Much love,

theory of mice