I'm still trying to decided whether or not this has passed into the realms of a crack!fic yet. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it.

Four Calling Birds

It had taken them too long a while to round up the chickens. Buttercup had needed to be wrestled

from the room by a half-hysterical Prim, while Katniss and Mrs Everdeen warded the birds into the kitchen corner.

That night, Katniss had nightmares about the three of them, wriggling like maggots and screaming in their frightening dialect. 'Joyeux Noël et bonne année!', 'Je t'adore!', '¡Buenos Saturnales!': their fervent exclamations haunted her dreams, and she awoke with a headache grimmer than death itself. She thought she could hear them still, chattering away. Probably because they were only locked up downstairs.

Prim had joined her somewhere over the course of the night, the cat too. Her sister had curled up on Katniss's arm, putting it to sleep. Still, Katniss didn't begrudge her, stroking the girl's silken blonde hair and wistfully recalling the times when this had been normal.

'I think they're like the jabberjays,' Katniss told her over breakfast. 'Mutts engineered to copy human speech, except they were fed words beforehand. Why they would be taught weird gobbledegook is beyond me though. They could be saying anything.'

'It was a very unromantic present,' Prim added morosely.

'Agreed. We can't even eat them.' The thought of eating talking birds made them pale. 'What can we do with them?'

'We could keep them as pets,' was Prim's reluctant suggestion. The idea appealed to neither of them.

'Do you think Peeta's delivery service does returns?'

…

Cato not showing up that morning was like a silver lining amongst storm clouds: ultimately inconsequential. And as quiet as they were around each other, Madge managed to pick up on Katniss's cantankerous mood. 'Why the frown? We break up today.'

'Just trying to work things out.'

Madge's disbelieving look was becoming very familiar to Katniss, but so was the agreeable silence that followed it.

School finished prematurely that day, which Katniss was mildly grateful for, as dusk fell ridiculously early in the lead up to the winter solstice. Her walk home was in blinding daylight beneath a tauntingly clear, blue sky. The sight of its pure, unblemished expanse was enough to inspire a lick of hopefulness in her. Even the slush, just a glorified version of crystallised mud that had been heaped on either side of the road, looked pretty in the winter sunlight. If the sky was finally clear here…

She needed to head to the woods immediately. Nothing stood in her way. Her mother was out visiting patients, Prim was staying indefinitely at a friend's house to celebrate her temporary freedom, Gale was back in the mines, Buttercup was always out despite the inhospitable weather. She even thought she had the courage to deal with the hens today.

As she had predicted, the house was empty, and she gathered her hunting gear in meticulous silence. Then she ventured into the kitchen and found herself a nice, sharp knife. With a determined stride, she approached the chicken cage. The birds saw her coming and crowded to the far side of their little prison. 'Pah-lez vouse anglays!' they kept shouting at her in their odd, masculine voices.'Pah-lez vouse anglays!' She wondered what that meant. Was it a plea for mercy, an elegant appeal to her better judgement?

'I'm sorry,' she told them, 'but we don't have the money to keep you fed properly. Eggs would probably be of a lot of use to us now, but we have no means to keep you healthy enough to lay them. At least this is better than letting you loose so that you die in the cold. At least this is quick.'

This argument did nothing to sway them. Instead, as she carefully opened the door, one of them scratched her hand and escaped. The other two were quick to follow.

'You little bastard!' she hissed. 'That's it. I was trying to be humane!'

And so began a heated chase around the house, the hens scampering ahead and Katniss storming behind, wielding her knife and howling like a warrior queen, trying not to trip on the furniture. Then someone knocked at the door. Katniss skidded to a halt, lost her footing and crashed into a kitchen cupboard. She had finally found the pots that errant birds were constantly dashing to the floor. In the background, it sounded a lot like the hens were laughing at her.

Picking herself up and threatening them with a mean look and a flick of the knife, she limped to the front door. She supposed that it was Prim, having forgot something "essential" like hair ribbons as she usually did. Unfortunately for Katniss, it was Peeta.

There was nowhere to hide her giant knife except for behind her back. And she would never stoop to that.

'You're early,' she said quickly.

Neither Peeta nor his smile was fazed. 'I thought it would be more convenient for you. The only thing that was stopping me from delivering earlier was school.'

'Oh,' said Katniss.

Peeta's eyes inevitably fell to her knife. 'You're very weapon-friendly,'

'Not really,' Katniss mumbled. 'You just keep catching me at, er, weapon-friendly times.'

'Ok,' he replied and laughed easily.

What are you doing, Katniss? Stop staring at you shoes and tell him about the annoying chickens! 'Erm, about that last gift. It wasn't very satisfactory.'

Peeta's smile didn't fail, like she expected, so she supposed that was quite good. 'Oh, what was wrong with it?'

'They keep talking, and it's scaring Prim,' and me, she mentally added.

'What's talking?' Peeta asked incredulously.

'Those hens you gave me.'

'Talking?'

'Do you actually know what you're delivering to me?'

'Not when it's boxed up. Do you, er, mind if I come in and see? I am meant to report to my employer about your levels of satisfaction.'

Katniss froze. He wanted to come in? 'Sure,' she breathed. 'It's not really presentable.'

'I won't stay long, promise, and I won't look at anything you don't want me to look at.'

'Fine, fine,' Katniss groused, palming her face in a fruitless bid to hide its pinkness. 'Just stop saying reassuring things.'

The hens were strutting peaceably around the living room, but when they saw her, they squawked in alarm and ran away, demonstrating their proficiency in archaic human languages as they left.

'Wow,' Peeta chuckled nervously, 'why would he get you that?'

'I know, right? I can't do anything with them.'

'So you tried to kill them?' Peeta asked, nodding towards the knife in her hand.

She stooped, and hid the knife behind her back. 'No, well, yes, but either way they would die. We can't feed them, so we can't keep them. And who else would want three, unintelligible mutts? They scare the living daylights out of me…Prim. Out of Prim, and she usually loves animals.'

'I could ask around if you want.'

'They're so Capitol. No-one in District Twelve would go for that, especially since Capitol people started coming here. They sure can sell their city.' She fell to murmuring: 'Maybe people would go for them if they couldn't talk. Avox hens, yes.'

'Katniss,' Peeta said slowly, 'Capitol people are coming here.'

'Yes, and the sooner they leave the better.'

'But what if one of them left with three talking chickens in tow?'

'You mean we could give them to a Capitolite?'

'I mean we could sell them to a Capitolite,' Peeta returned with a lopsided smirk that belied his angelic, golden curls.

Unconsciously, Katniss found herself returning it. 'That's good. That's really good. What would be repulsive to anyone from Twelve would just be a fun novelty to a Capitolite.'

'That's settled then. Let me take them off your hands. So many Capitol folk come into the bakery, I'm sure I could get one of them interested. Do you mind if I go into the rest of the house? Just to look for them.'

Instead of granting his request, Katniss looked at him curiously. 'Why are you helping me so much?'

'I want good ratings?' That crooked grin reappeared but with a bashful streak that deeply confused her.

Katniss looked away before she lost her head completely, folded her arms and shrugged. 'You can try and round them up, if you want.'

Peeta opted to cajole the hens back into the cage with gentle words and soft clicks of the tongue. And as funny as he looked on his hands and knees, clucking at the chickens in a tongue that was probably as mangled as the hen's human, the annoying charmer got the job done in minutes.

'Are you going to open today's present?' he asked as he carried the chicken cage back into the living room.

'I'm sure you can understand if I feel a bit divided about that.'

'Yeah,' Peeta said with a chuckle, 'but there's a limit to how many talking animals a guy can send.'

'True,' Katniss replied with a reluctant smile. 'You sure know how to persuade people.'

'I've got a lifetime of wheedling cookies from my dad under my belt.'

This earned him a laugh, one that Katniss quickly stifled when she saw how it made him grin. She hurriedly turned her attention to the box Peeta had brought in and set on the sofa, and with a juddering breath, she opened it. What she saw inside made her briskly shut it again.

'What is it?' Peeta asked. 'Another dud?'

'I can't keep these,' she whispered.

Peeta set the chickens down and gently prised the box open. Inside were four docile birds, their lustrous feathers gathered in an arrangement of coal black and snow white. 'Are those…?'

'Mockingjays,' Katniss confirmed. 'I've never seen any so close before.'

'I've never seen any at all.'

'My father…' Katniss began, but she couldn't finish. 'I, yeah, I can't keep these. I want to return them, to the forest, where they belong.'

There was only one forest that she could mean, but Peeta wasn't horrified or dismayed at the mention of the prohibited area. After all, his family had seen many of its squirrels over the years. Instead, he shifted and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. It was so broad it cradled her deltoid completely, enveloping it in warmth. 'Want me to help?'

Katniss's arm tensed, and Peeta hurriedly dropped his hand. Should she let this boy she hardly knew but infinitely owed to see her private world, her sanctuary? It was a part of her that she couldn't erase, where her father's ghost still dwelt. It was as secret as her smiles, as exclusive as her laughs. It was the place that brought her to life.

But in three days, Peeta had done something to her that had taken others months, years. He had painstakingly won her shaky grins and grudging giggles. Why not show him the woods?

'If you don't have anything else to do.'

'Not immediately, no,' Peeta replied cautiously. 'And to compensate you for what I expect will be my lumbering incompetence in the great outdoors, I brought food.' He unzipped his bulky winter coat to reveal a little satchel, stuffed to the brim with bakery bags. 'Here's your chance to try a cheese bun.'

For some reason, Katniss felt exasperated. 'Did you keep that warm with your body heat?' she asked him.

Peeta flushed. 'That was the general idea.'

'Well,' she said, 'I could hardly let your valiant efforts be in vain. Toss me one.'

…

Katniss was so covertly fond of these novel cheese buns that she nonchalantly took up Peeta's suggestion to bring some with them, and whenever he offered one to her, she quickly, but casually accepted it. There was just something about the fluffiness of the bread, or the way the cheese melted, that set her palette dancing. Not that she betrayed any of this outwardly. Peeta could stop smiling so knowingly at her already.

'Through the fence,' she told him in her usual, brusque tone.

'Really?' Peeta asked, eyeing the forbidding expanse of tangled, metal wire. 'Isn't it live?'

'Not usually, but you always have to listen to check.'

They listened momentarily before Katniss declared it safe, and she wasted no time in digging away some snow and shimmying through the sizeable gap she had created between frayed fence and icy ground. Peeta followed, pushing his burden of three chickens and four mockingjays through first before gingerly sliding himself past on strong arms. Not that Katniss had seen them. It was only a logical description seeing as he had carried two heavy cages across the Seam without any visible exertion. And he daily manhandled cavernous sacks of flour as part of his bakery work. And she was pretty certain that he was the reigning wrestling champion as well.

'Ready?'

During Katniss's musings, Peeta had stood up, gathered the birds and moved to stand within a foot from her. Katniss jumped, slid on the ice and groaned as a chuckling Peeta caught her around the middle. 'Yep,' she said.

'Excellent,' he replied, sky-blue eyes crinkling in good-natured mirth.

Katniss forgot her embarrassment as she surveyed her forest, where, miraculously, only a meagre shower of snow was falling. 'It's cleared.' Her smiles were freer in the forest, and the sight of this welcome weather planted a brilliant beam on her face. 'It's cleared. I'll actually be able to hunt something today.' She darted forward, her tread light on the powdery snow. Breathing deeply, she turned, eyes fluttering shut, absorbing the long-absent sound of creatures moving through the trees, scurrying through the snow. 'I can hear. And look, tracks. The tracks haven't been covered up. There are actually animals about.'

When she turned back, Peeta was watching her with quiet awe, cheeks painted red by the cold, Katniss was sure.

'We should release the mockingjays now.'

'Of course, yes, what we came here for, right?'

Katniss actually laughed as the birds flew from the box in a monochromatic flurry of wings, landing on a low-hanging branch and observing their liberators with intelligent black eyes. She dared herself to stand closer to Peeta while he was beaming up at the birds. 'They're songbirds, right? They copy tunes.'

'Yeah.'

Peeta whistled something, a laconic excerpt from a half-familiar melody. As the mockingjays picked it up, passing it among them as if it were a game, Katniss remembered. 'The Valley Song?'

The boy nodded enthusiastically before passing an admiring gaze over the forest once more. It looked so idyllic in its coat of white, the majestic trees running interference on the winter sunlight so that the forest floor was striped shadowy grey and sunny gold. And everywhere was the bustle of life where only yesterday, there had been storm-enforced silence. 'This place is like a shrine to the living,' he said softly.

And Katniss found herself opening up because he knew, he understood. 'My dad used to take me here when I was small. He taught me about all the plants, which ones to pick, and how to hunt.' Peeta was giving her his full attention, as if she were the master of words, of stories, not him. 'He loved the mockingjays. I remember how he used to sing to them, old folk songs for them to repeat. And whenever he sang, the whole forest would go silent as the mockingjays listened.'

'You've inherited that gift.'

Katniss shied away. 'I don't sing.'

'You did, once,' Peeta said. His voice was coloured by nostalgia, the sun was too radiant on his skin, and he looked at her in way that Katniss had done nothing to deserve. 'This place seems so important to you. Thank you for letting me come along for a little while.'

'You're welcome,' Katniss mumbled, glad that the conversation had been diverted. If it had continued on in that strand for any longer, Katniss thought she might have ended up singing for him. And while she was ready to show Peeta her smiles and her woods, her voice was another matter. 'There was a Capitolite in here the other day, you know.'

'Really?'

'Yeah, his friends rushed me as I was heading to the forest. They said they dared him to climb through the fence and he hadn't come out for ages. So I went in and found him stuck in a tree.' Peeta laughed. 'I wasn't so amused. It was some guy around our age with crazily styled hair. Red with orange tips. I think he wanted it to look like it was on fire or something. He'd climbed the tree, got his leg caught and fell hard. It took me ages to get him down in one piece, and then I had to help him over to my mom because he'd broken his ankle.'

'You're a lifesaver.'

'The idiot wasn't so grateful for it. He was calling for his security guards and his family doctor. I think he was a bit delirious.'

'And you still put up with him. You know, Katniss Everdeen, I'm starting to think that you're a lot kinder than you want people to think you are.'

'Perish the thought.'

Peeta laughed again. 'Consider it done. Well, I think I'll let you get on with your hunting. Again, thank you for letting me see this place. It's amazing.' He hoisted the cage of chickens under one arm. 'And I'll set about finding these guys…or girls, a new owner.'

'Just–' Peeta had started moving away, but her voice halted him, 'just make sure that the owner's a good one. You know how some of them are cruel.'

'Some of everyone are cruel,' Peeta remarked with a little smile, 'but don't worry, I'll find them a good home. You're making it very hard to think you're not kind.'

'Try harder,' Katniss said.

'No,' Peeta retorted with a sly grin and a wink that was so unexpected, Katniss's heart skipped a couple of beats. 'See you tomorrow.'

'Ok,' she muttered.

Only then did it occur to her how dangerous Peeta really was. Not because he was stocky or strong, not because he could hurl a hundred-pound load of flour over his head, not even because he had bloodied his fists more than once in a wrestling match. He was kind. Astonishingly kind and impossibly charming. Such a person had a way of worming themselves past people's defences and into their hearts. In just three days, Peeta had made it past the fence and into the woods. There even his smaller actions were magnified, they could wound, destroy, and all the blame would be on Katniss, because she had let him in.

Katniss set about stringing her bow. The sooner she was hunting, the sooner she would feel like a predator of the forest again, not one of its hunted prey. Up in the canopy, the mockingjays were still reciting the Valley Song.

AN: No Gale or Cato in this chapter. I wish that it could stay that way.

ahschung and blondmomma09: glad you like it! Trude: your comment really made me laugh. I'll leave it up to your judgement as to whether Prim was being completely honest or not. Anonymous: thank you for your in-depth reviews. They are the best. You are perceptive...and your puppy sounds adorable!

Reviews warm my typing hands in the middle of frosty England.