Someone remarked that they were a little confused by what I wrote. I have it all written on my profile so I think that if you don't get it then you should go on there. It's really very simple and I've used it in all of my stories. My stories, granted, aren't the best but they keep getting better as I go along. So I'm hoping that you all who don't understand will go and read it from my profile otherwise I'm going to continue. If you still don't get it then review and tell me so that I can try to explain it to you.
When I awake next its morning again. My cheek and heart ache, and so do my wrists. I go to take a shower and they are still covered by a layer of skin though and I proceed just like I would have had the night never happened. That's what I'm hoping to do but I can already feel my attitude towards everything changing. It would be both harder and easier to win the Hunger Games.
Since I was…immortal…No that word doesn't fit. If I was immortal I'd still be able to be permanently killed. Anyways, if I were wounded in battle I'd have to fight my body's natural reflex to heal itself and in return I would gain another everlasting wound, just like the one on my cheek.
I climb out of the shower and again I'm refreshed by the way the water had felt on my skin. I have to admit, the Capital really knew how to treat somebody to the good life. At home the showers were just a rag and some cold water. Now I tried myself off using the pole that shot electricity through my body. I even go an extra step and use some of the bottled lotions that are resting on a shelf next to the mirror.
As I return to my room I realize that I will not be dressing myself today. A pair of tight black pants, a long sleeved burgundy tunic, and leather shoes has been left in front of my closet. This only serves to remind me how much I really hated my free will being taken away. I was a being that was used to having her own way. Spoiled? Yes. Loving it that way? Absolutely.
I pull the clothes on. They aren't that bad really, but the tunic may take some adjusting to. I glance at the mirror that is just on the door of the closet and I realize that I look calm. It's not something that I've been since Dad died. There was always something in the way of me being calm. Whether it was getting food for my family or taking care of Haymitch, there was always something that called my attention away from myself. Now, I get to think about myself, problem is that I'm thinking about my survival and not a hot cup of chocolate. Not the 'thinking about myself' I was really hoping for but it'll do.
I haven't exactly come up with a strategy. I'm hoping that Haymitch will help me with that. After all Haymitch has been through it all before. Granted his arena was probably different then what they are going to put Peeta and I in but his help would be better than nothing.
The only thing I can think to do is train now and later, at the mandatory interview I can find some way to appeal to the crowd of wealthy supervisors that are just waiting to sponsor a player in their games. With this idea rattling around in my mind I manage to do up my long, cascading hair into a high ponytail, leaving just enough for bangs that I can tuck behind my ear. There was nothing else I could do and I was quite hungry so I headed out of my room and to the dining room with the funky furniture in it.
The table was clean from any kind of remains of our dinner last night but there was an aria of food waiting on a board off to the side of the raised dining area. An Avox, not Hade, is waiting there stiff and his eyes attentive. I head up the stairs and to the board glancing at him for permission. He nodes at me and I start to serve myself to the feast in front of me.
Despite my change of mind I am still disgusted that so many people are unable to eat when the Capital must throw it away all for the sake of being glamorous and loved by their peers. I could think of people in the Seam who could really use this food for their families. I make a side note in the recess of my complex mind to someday give a little more back to the homeless, or even the less fortunate. For now though I need to eat as much as possible so that I can hopefully last longer in the arena.
I sit down at the table by myself and begin to eat for lack of patience to wait on the others. I don't have to wait long because soon both Peeta and Haymitch join me for breakfast. Peeta is his usual self and he greets me quietly with a nod of the head. He has always been a morning person. Haymitch is sluggish though. He will be until he gets some food in him. I have to admit though he does still look gorgeous even to my time-wised eyes. His blonde hair is rather rumpled from his restless sleep and his shirt and pants were probably only thrown on without looking. His blues eyes are murky with sleep and his movements are slow but powerful.
It makes me think that without the alcohol he probably had a rough night. He usually keeps the nightmares away if he falls into a drunken, exhausted heap. He's the best when he has a knife clutched in his hand as well. I remember not even two days ago when I'd been waking him up with a bucket of water. Those days were gone for a while, at least until I am able to come home. Of course they probably won't resume then. I'll need someone else to step in and take care of me because there is no telling what kind of shape I'll be in after the Hunger Games.
Peeta is wearing the same outfit as I am and I have a passing thought that it looks all right on him.
I'm more worried about the training. For three days all of the tributes will train together. On the last day of training we will get a chance to be judged by the gamemakers in private. I don't know how impressive my axe work will be. I could always use a knife, but that's probably over used. I've never seen bow and arrow work done before but I'm not that good that was always Katniss' forte or it was before the accident.
I also am nervous about meeting the other tributes and about their reactions to me. From the glares Peeta and I received I can't assume that I have any allies as of yet.
Soon Haymitch is done eating, after he's eaten about fourteen bowls of stew that is. I'm tempted to comment on the amount of food but I settle for grimacing and watching all of the food disappear. I think after the fourth bowl he was only eating to watch my face. That would explain the smug expression on his face a lot more than him being smug about eating. Finally he's done eating. He sits back and starts talking the first I've really heard since last night.
"So, let's get down to business. Training." Haymitch says and I fall in love with him all over again. Yeah, I've got to admit it. I'm in love with Haymitch, the man who saved me. I guess it could have been worse, I could have fallen in love with Peeta and then I would have had to watch him die or I would have had to kill him. At least I'm allowed to come back to Haymitch after this. "First off, if you like, I'll coach you separately. Decide now." He tells us and I meet his eyes before I look at Peeta's.
"Why would you train us separately?" I finally ask. I want to make an informed decision so that I have the best chance to win. Even if its against my best friend since I was five.
"Say if you had a secret skill you might not want the other to know about," Haymitch explains and he leans closer in his chair but I'm looking Peeta in the eyes. He really is too sweet, overly sweet with his cute face. I'm sure if he put his mind to it he could have the entire Capital falling all over him. What have I got? Nothing.
If I decide to practice without company I would probably revert to my unnatural powers but on the other hand I'll also keep my secrets from Peeta. Not that there really is anything that I can't show Peeta. If I decide to train with Peeta I can know both his good parts and bad parts. That way I can maybe make it quick but hopefully I can avoid him all together and let someone else take him out.
I feel sick, planning the death of Peeta.
"I don't have any secret skills," Peeta decides for us. "And I already know what yours is, right?" He asks and I agree. He knows way to much about me for me to train by myself. "I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels." It shocks me for a moment. Peeta and I have never spoken about the meat that I sell to his father. I feel silly not thinking that Peeta gets to eat the meat to. I guess that I just saw the kind old man eating them himself, away from his overbearing wife.
"We'll train together, then so we can help each other." I agree with Peeta. He breaks out in a smile and I can't help the answering one on my face. I do see the grimace that passes Haymitch's face and it confuses me. The disgusted expression is gone as soon as it came though and I don't waste time trying to figure Haymitch out because lets face it, I don't understand men nearly as well as I do animals.
"All right, so give me ideas of what you can do. I already know yours, Katfir, but tell me again so I know them all." Haymitch orders us. I shift in my seat and try and think of all the useful things I can do.
"I can't do anything," Peeta admits. I don't like to say bad things about Peeta but he is a baker's son and, even if it was cast-offs from the bakery, he's always had something g to eat. "Unless you count baking bread."
"Sorry, I don't." Haymitch doesn't look all that sorry at all. He turns to me and again I'm drowning in the blue in his eyes. I think I can see a bit of silver in them around the edges. "I know you're good with a knife and axes, what else is there?" He asks me.
"I can hunt, and survive a few days in the forest. I've practiced with a bow and arrow." I admit. "Not near as well as Katniss, but I'm pretty good." I also throw in just so he doesn't begin to think I am a good enough shot to take out anyone with it. My axes, it'll be easy but not with a bow and arrow. Maybe I can work on that during my training.
"But I know you're good at it." Haymitch waves away my comments. I've brought some food to him before, when he would complain about the Capital food. It got him to eat so most of the time I would do it just to keep him talking at night.
"Yes, She's excellent." Peeta suddenly interjects but he isn't looking at me, he's glaring down Haymitch. I flush with the praise but it doesn't mask the hostility between the two men in front of me. Yes, Haymitch is glaring right back even as Peeta continues to praise me, unneeded by the way. "My father is always commenting on how the knife never pierces the hide, or how the axe only ever cuts off the unnecessary parts." I don't want to admit it, because it sounds weird to praise my skills but he's right. If the hide had a lot of holes in it then I wouldn't be able to sell it for as much money so I learnt to hit them at just the right spot.
"Peeta is strong." I blurt out, just to ease the tension. It works because now they are both looking at me in surprise that I was even speaking any more. "He's always lifting things that I can't. Like, like, the flour sacks that way a hundred pounds at least." I told them.
"Yes, I'm sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn't," He disagrees with me. I can feel my face getting hot with anger.
"But it's an asset. You can use it to help you with fighting. You can wrestle, I know that. You came in first in the school wrestling matches." I tell Haymitch, who is quickly fading off my radar as I try and talk Peeta up just as much as he is me.
"How good is that? What am I going to do, wrestle someone to death?" Peeta says.
"There's always hand-to-hand combat. All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I'm dead." I Tell him. True, if I had a knife I could do some damage. I've never had to use it up close though. I've never had to fight someone up close but I can throw a knife from a distance. How will that help me if I'm getting attacked?
"But you won't! You'll be climbing up trees and picking people off. You know what my mother said to me when she visited me?" Peetas asks me and I know that it's flooding out of him now. I already know it must be bad because his mother really doesn't like Peeta. She's a horrible woman and I fear what I'm about to hear. "She told me 'maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner.' Then I realized that she was talking about you."
My face flushes again, not from the praise but for anger. How can the last words you said to your son be something like that. "She must have meant you." I argue anyways.
"She said, 'She's a survivor that one.' She is," Peeta strains.
My hand is now crushing the table where I'm clutching it. My other hand is flat on the table and I leaning closer in the heat of the argument. Peeta is to and I realize that Haymitch is there, watching us wearily. Strangely though, I can see smugness in his manners. Again I wonder why but I put it aside to analyze later.
"That's nonsense. She doesn't know what she's talking about." I grind out to Peeta. He in turn rolls his eyes and sits back, disbelieving that I'm still to stubborn. That thought makes me want to smile and I can feel my cheek twitch for a moment.
Peeta turns to Haymitch and exasperatedly tells him, "She has no idea. The effect she can have." I see something flash in Haymitch's eyes as his eyes flicks to me.
"Agreed." He muttered, before gulping down his blue fruit drink. Peeta shuts up and runs his clean nails along the grains in the wood and I glare at the bowl of rolls in the middle of the table. After a minute or two of this, Haymitch finally breaks the silence.
"Well, well, well. There is no gaurentee that there will be any kind of axe, knife, or even a bow and arrow in the arena." He tells me. I know what he means. I remember one yearthey only gave them hideous, violent maces to bludgeon each other with. "However, in your private session with the Gamemakers, use it to your advantage. Until then, stay clear of any of the things you are good at." He instructs. I'm confused for a moment before I understand.
He means for me to be secretive, so that I don't show the other tributes what I can do. It's a good strategy and I'm so thankful that I have a strategy now that I could kiss Haymitch right now.
I'm brought up short as I remember the moment in my Capital room…that moment when I thought I was going to die because for that moment Haymitch wanted to kiss me, me. I feel the flutter of butterflies in my stomach, something that I haven't felt since the first I realized that Haymitch was a man now, instead of a broken teenagers.
Unaware, Haymitch continues. "Are you any good at trapping?" He asks me.
"I'm not as good at it then other things, but I'm pretty good." I mutter, because I'm very much aware of Haymitch now. He seems a lot more at ease then he was before. It's like my argument with Peeta only made him happier but I really don't realize how he can be happy about that.
"That may be significant in terms of getting food," Haymitch says, still completely unaware of my confused thoughts. "And, Peeta," He continued. "She's right; never underestimate strength in the arena. Very often, physical power tilts the advantage to a player." I'm suddenly thankful that I can rely on the muscles I have in my arms from my axe throwing. Maybe, if I was lucky, I really could make it in a fist-fight. If I was even luckier, I wouldn't have to.
"In the Training Center, they will have weights, but don't reveal how much you can lift in front of the other tributes." Haymitch instructed him. I had it right then, the strategy was to not let on that we have skills, why we try to better the skills we don't have. "The plans the same for both of you. You go to group training. Spend the time trying to learn something you don't know. Throw a spear. Swing a mace. Learn to tie a decent knot. Save showing what you're best at until your private sessions. Are we clear?" He asks us, really confirming what I had realized so I nod, and so does Peeta.
"One last thing. In public, I want you by each other's side every minute." He told us. This I don't understand. I mean, I probably would have anyways, because I was going to anyways, because he was the only one that I was going to know at all here in the Capital. Haymitch doesn't let us protest though. "Every minute! It's not open for discussion! You agreed to do as I said! You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other. Now get out. Meet Effie at the elevator at ten for training." I force myself to bite my lip at his explosion.
I didn't think it called for all of that yelling but its Haymitch and there isn't anything I can really do. Os instead of making a fuse I manage to drag me to my room. When I get there I'm surprised to see Hade standing there straightening the covers on my bed. The door clicked behind me and Hade looked up at me.
For a moment we are both frozen but then I couldn't help it, I burst in to tears and fly at him. As my arms find their way around him I can't help but sob and stick my head into his familiar chest. His arms wrap around me to and it's like I'm coming home. I've never admitted it to myself but Hade was like my second father. He took care of me and he mentored me.
"Hade…I missed you so much." I sobbed into his shoulder and his arms tighten around me. I can see, because my face is digging into his neck, that he has grey in his hair now, and that his face has wrinkles in it, despite the Capital's fake red eyebrows and dyed lips that are on his face.
I know that he can't speak; it's a punishment from the Capital. If you do something that makes you an avox then they take your vocal cords out in return. I hate that I'll never hear his voice again because it was something that had caused me so much warmth in my youth. It was a deep baritone that had a strange accent that apparently came from District 11.
"Are you okay?" I ask, though I know its probably wrong. I step back from him and I wipe away the tears on my face because now my eyes are going to be red from crying. I glance at his arm, the one that had squirted so much blood all over me when he'd been attacked. Hade, who has always known what I meant, undid the white and red shirt he had on so that I can see the scar he was sporting. Of course the Capital people wouldn't heal someone who was a criminal. I tentatively touched the wound and his arm twitched. I hastily pulled my hand away but he caught it in his rough hand and replaced it on his arm.
His tan skinned made me want to cry again because the scar was pure white.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't help and I should have, I wanted to—" I try to tell him but he only brings me back into an embrace and clasps his arms around my back so that I can rest on him. "I wish I could talk to you, I've missed you so much." I confided in him. I smiled when I felt the familiar sensation of his lips against my forehead. It meant that he missed me to, I realized and it made me tear up again only this time Hade was the one to wipe the tears from my face.
I in return kissed his cheek and smiled at him. But then there was a knocking at the door and my head snapped to the door. "Yes?" I asked, surprised that my voice was so steady considering what I was feeling, despair, sadness, and yet happiness.
"It's ten…" Peeta's voice said through the door.
"All right, I'm coming give me a second." I said to him, running to the bathroom to splash some water on my face to fix the redness of my eyes. It barely helped, but at least it wasn't as noticeable as before.
I walked back into the room but now Hade was staring at me and I can see the amusement that was written on his face. He gave me a wink before he slipped out the door, leaving Peeta standing there, confused as I stepped out of my room as well. "Shall we?" I asked, walking along, not waiting for an answer from him.
I know it's really short you guys but I wanted to go ahead and get it out there for you guys to read because you've been so patient with me. I don't have to much to say right now because I'm really liking this story but I've started on my Ironman story and I've got to say that it is one of my best. I've started on so many ways that I could do that story but I've all scraped them in the end because they just wouldn't go with the story I lost. Now, I'm only so far in the story that I've written and it's in the early stages but I like it so far. I hope, when I finally get it up, that you guys like it to. Oh, I'm going to re-see the Avengers, because it was way to awesome for my brain to comprehend.
I saw Dark Shadows and it was all right, but it wasn't Johnny Depp's best movie. It was pretty good though I kind of thought it was to hasty and didn't explain a lot of things correctly. Don't get me wrong, it was good, and it had a lot of funny parts but it was no Avengers.
So question per update:
Which Fanfiction story is your favorite?
Mine has to be You wanna know what I think? By RubyWaters. It's a JokerOC and the OC is named Jane. She isn't anything special, she's just an aspiring writer who works as a janitor at Arkham Insane Asylum. She's been raped before but then this one guy comes in while Jane is scrubbing clean the Joker's cell and tries to rape her but the Joker saves her because she's been feeding him food to keep him from starving. It's really good and I love it to death. I read it over and over when I'm bored. If you like the Joker then you should go check it out and also there is Violet in Gotham, I forget who by but it's pretty good once you get passed the first few chapters.
Anyways, thanks for reading!