Disclaimer: The Hunger Games Trilogy is property of Suzanne Collins. This is a parody fanwork by fans for fans. No money was made off of the creation of this fanwork.
Note: This is Gale's side story which takes place in the same universe and runs concurrently to my story "Spectator." You will likely want to read that fic first since I will be making reference to the events that take place in it. This chapter takes place after the some of the events in Chapter Seventeen. This story will be updated biweekly on Tuesdays. There may be times when I won't totally adhere to this schedule, it will depend on where the main fic is in its storyline. But even if I miss a week, my update day will still remain a Tuesday.
Forgotten
By Fanfic Allergy
oOo
Chapter Three
As much as part of me wants to, I avoid turning on the Games. It's hard enough to watch Mandatory Viewing every day, let alone entire hours of the thing. I don't know how Katniss managed to do it.
Instead, I spend the time out in the Meadow with Rory, Vick and Posy. We gather enough greens for lunch and dinner and I pick some extra stuff to drop off in Lady's pen before going home to get my hunting gear so I can meet Madge.
She's watching for me and nods her head in greeting before slipping under the fence. She lets me take the lead but I can feel her eyes on me as we walk though the underbrush.
"What do you want?" I ask, turning around to face her, when I've had enough of the staring.
"I was just wondering what you did this afternoon," she replies slowly. "I'm guessing you weren't watching the Games."
"No, as a matter of fact, I wasn't. I normally don't watch the Games unless I have to." I'm letting my annoyance at the whole situation out on her.
For her part, she just shrugs. "It's probably for the best anyway."
Now she has me curious as well as annoyed. "Why do you say that?"
She gives me an odd look and crosses her arms. "Give me your word you won't do anything stupid."
My annoyance grows. "What makes you think I'm going to do something stupid?"
"Your word or I'm not saying another thing." She remains firm.
"Define doing something stupid first," I counter.
She nods her head. "Fair enough. No running around town making a fool of yourself, no angry outbursts where anyone can hear, and definitely no contradicting publically anything I say. You can yell at me all you want out here in the woods, but once we're back in town you follow my lead. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it. I'm not sure I can do it, though." I'm trying to be honest with her as well as myself. I'm not sure how I'm going to react to anything. I definitely didn't intend to confront Katniss the night of the tribute interviews. It just happened. One moment I was at home watching Mandatory Viewing, the next an incoherent protective rage came over me. It always does when someone I care about is threatened.
Madge is insistent. "You have to, Gale. Katniss's life depends on it."
An icicle of fear pierces through me. "What's happened?" I ask slowly, trying to calm my heart, which has suddenly started beating a thousand beats a second.
"Promise me, Gale."
Seeing that I won't get the answer out of her until I promise, I take a deep breath and say, "Okay, I promise I won't do anything stupid at least in town," I hedge.
"I'm going to hold you to that," she warns me. Then she finds a fallen log and motions for me to sit down on it. "You might want to be seated for this."
"Okay." I'm getting even more nervous, if that's possible.
"So you know how the Everdeens and the Mellarks were taken to the Capitol to do the interviews?" she starts.
I roll my eyes. "Yeah, you're the one who told me."
"Well, the interviews started today. Mrs. Everdeen was up first and her interview went okay. But then they got to Peeta's oldest brother, Bing." Here her voice changes slightly and I'm not sure why. "Bing talked about how Peeta was a talented artist and then he mentioned that there were sketches that Effie Trinket had that they would show later. I think I know what they are. And I think I know what the Capitol is going to make of them. But that's not all. Mr. Mellark told Caesar Flickerman about how Peeta's been slipping these specially decorated cookies into the bread Katniss trades for, and apparently he's been doing it for four years now."
I must be missing the point, none of this seems like anything for me to get upset over. "So? What's that got to do with keeping Katniss safe or me getting mad?"
Madge sits down heavily next to me and says, "Don't you see, Gale? They're going to make it out that the baby Katniss is carrying is Peeta's."
My confusion turns to rage in an instant just like it did on the night of the tribute interviews. "Katniss would never let them do that!" I start to get to my feet.
But Madge stops me with a hand on my arm. "Please, Gale, you have to understand, she may not have a choice. If she has to choose between your pride and her sister's life, what do you think she's going to choose?"
I sit back down heavily and look down at the ground, a scowl on my face. I want to say she'd do the right thing and tell the truth. I want to say she wouldn't let the Capitol or anyone else tell her what to do. I want to say that. But I can't. Because I know what she'll do. She'll lie or at least refrain from telling the truth, which is the same as a lie. She'll do it to save her sister, because Prim means more to her than anything else in the world and she'll do anything to make sure her sister lives. And what's even worse is I can't blame her.
I want to blame her. I want her to acknowledge that the child she's carrying is mine. I want her to admit she has some feeling for me. But that's not going to happen. In the end, as much as I want to cast the blame on her I know she's just as much of a victim as me in all of this. And I know that if I were in her shoes, I'd do the same thing to save Rory, Vick or Posy.
I just don't see how anyone with sense could think that Peeta Mellark could possibly be the father of Katniss's baby. She's never hung out with him, to my knowledge. Never even talked with him. No one could possibly think that they'd interacted enough to ever have a serious conversation, let alone a strong enough of a relationship that would lead to a baby.
No, Madge can't be right. She must be seeing things that aren't there. Looking up from my shoes, I turn my head to regard the merchant girl sitting next to me. "You're wrong. No one's stupid enough to believe it."
Madge rolls her eyes at me. "This is the Capitol we're talking about. The same people who think that the districts want to send two of their kids off to die every year. They are, by definition, stupid."
I shake my head. "They can't be that gullible."
"Of course they can! People see what they want to see and they'll use the flimsiest of excuses to justify their beliefs." She sighs. "I hope you're right, Gale. I really do. Not just for your sake, but for Katniss's." She stands up and brushes her pants off. "We should probably get a move on."
I nod, even though I don't really want to go anywhere I know I've got an obligation. "We should. You're still wrong though."
She regards me seriously. "And what if I'm not? What are you going to do?"
What am I going to do? I don't know.
The Mayor's daughter must be able to read that in my expression because she gives another sigh. "Why don't we watch Mandatory Viewing at the Everdeens' tonight? I'll bring some food and we can say we're taking care of the place. That way if you have the urge to do something stupid, you can do it without any witnesses, and I'll be there to stop you."
"What about you?" I ask.
She looks confused. "What about me?"
"Don't you count as a witness?"
She smiles. "I'm not going to say anything to anyone else, not even Katniss. I promise."
"Fine. But you're going to be wrong," I insist stubbornly. There's no way anyone with eyes could make that connection.
She shrugs and heads off in the direction of where we set our snares, leaving me to decide if I want to follow her or not.
I don't, but I follow her anyway because I don't want her death on my conscience.
oOo
The snares don't net us very much. Out of Madge's ten snares, she only managed to catch a single, frightened rabbit, its leg dislocated from the struggle to pull itself free of the snare. A quick knife thrust to the brain ends the creature's pain.
I look over to see how the Mayor's daughter handled the realities of hunting and trapping in the woods and I see what I expected to see. Horror. Her blue eyes are open wide and I can see tears forming at the corners.
"Not what you expected, is it?" I ask, unable to keep the sneer from my face.
She shakes her head. "The poor rabbit..." She glares at me. "Why did you teach me that snare? I know there are others that don't leave the animal struggling for hours in pain." Her voice is accusatory and she's taken a step toward me. "Do you like to watch things suffer? Is that why you did it? Did you want to make me so uncomfortable that I would give up on trying to learn what it's like out here that I'd stop trying to help my friend? Is that what you wanted?"
Madge's anger surprises me. I admit I'm not happy having her tagging along with me, but I didn't teach her that snare to be cruel. It's the simplest snare I know. The one that all new trappers start out learning. And I tell her so. "I didn't think about it like that. I just showed you the first snare my Pa taught me." I think about it for a moment. "Maybe that's the reason we learn it first, so that we value what it means to have to take a life in order to eat. So many people don't know what it's like to kill for their food that they take it for granted." I give her an assessing look. "I bet you don't look at rabbit stew the same way now, do you?"
Her eyes narrow, but I can see she's thinking seriously about what I said. "No, I don't. But I still don't like the idea of animals suffering. I'll take the extra time to learn the more difficult knots if it means I don't have to see that again."
I nod. "I'll teach you. But I can't guarantee you won't be forced to take the life of an animal again. Things go wrong all the time in the woods and I won't always be there to give the killing thrust. You'd best remember that."
She nods.
My snares fare better, two rabbits and a turkey. I field dress the turkey and show Madge how to do the same for the rabbits. She's clumsy and keeps making faces at the mess that comes out, but she doesn't throw up and she doesn't start crying which raises my estimation of her a little.
When we're done she asks, "So how do we go about preserving these?"
"We don't," I answer. "We're better off selling them or trading them for other things we need if we don't eat them right away. They're too small to preserve unless we got a lot of them at once."
She nods her head. "So now what?"
"I take the rabbits home to feed my family and we'll trade the turkey and rabbit pelts in town."
"Not the Hob?" she wants to know.
"Old Cray pays better than the hob for turkey. And the furrier will always take good rabbit pelts to trim coats and make hats," I reply. "He won't trade with Katniss, for some reason, but he'll trade with me."
Madge frowns for a moment. "I think I know why."
"Why?"
"His daughter hates the Everdeens," she answers.
I'm confused. "What'd they ever do to her?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," she replies. Then she looks up at me. "You might want to stop trading with Cray soon."
"Why?" I ask. "He's always been a good customer."
She nods. "Yeah, but he's been here for about five years. They don't like to keep any Peacekeepers deployed any one place for longer than that. It makes them homesick or rebellious or both. They're probably going to replace him soon."
"So they'll just move up someone else into his place. That woman you talked to earlier or another Peacekeeper."
Madge shakes her head. "No, they don't do that. It'll be someone new. That's how it works."
"How do you know this?" I can't keep from asking.
Smiling, she gives me a look. "Whose daughter am I?"
That's right. She's the Mayor's daughter, she'd know about how the government works. "Like I'd forget," I say to cover my forgetfulness.
The look changes to something a little sadder and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
oOo
AN:
Written: 11/21/13
Revised: 12/12/13
Beta Read by: RoseFyre
Yes, I'm stopping here. The next chapter takes place during Mandatory Viewing and is going to be a doozy for Gale. The chapters are going to be between 2000 and 3000 words unlike Spectator which has chapters as long as I want them to be.
On the subject of Cray, I tend to think, that just like army deployments, Peacekeepers don't get to be stationed in any one District for too long. Too long and they'll start to care for the population that they're supposed to be subjugating. Just look at what happened with Darius in Catching Fire and what that cost him. So since Cray's been there for a long time, according to Katniss, it's time for him to retire and move on and I will be playing with this.
The descriptions I give of how snares and trapping works is accurate. In fact, for some kinds of traps, you want the animal to stay alive so that they don't attract scavengers. Yeah. Not a happy thought and one that Collins kind of glossed over and the movie got wrong. I sort of goggled when they showed Katniss unhooking a rabbit with a slipknot snare around its leg. That kind of snare wouldn't kill an animal unless it starved to death, it had a heart attack from fear/exertion, or was killed in some other way, if you take into consideration the scene that preceded it then Katniss killing the animal becomes, well, a lot less plausible (and there's no blood.) Slipknot snares are fine, if they're set up to choke the animal or break the animal's neck. Minor rant over. So considering that Madge is new to the hunting and trapping world I wanted to cover what it's like to actually have to put down an animal for someone who's never had to before. It isn't easy, and it shouldn't be. It gives a respect for life and for where your food comes from. Something that I think would be important for Gale and his family to learn and something he'd try to pass on without really thinking about it.
Let me know what you think!