On the train, President Snow's threat, accompanied with the usual traumatic Games related nightmares kept Katniss from achieving a peaceful sleep. Turning and twisting the soft, Capitol-quality sheets, she eventually swung her legs over the side and stood to her feet. Stepping out into the hall, she drifted to Haymitch's door without a clear idea of what she would do when she was there. Her mentor appeared almost before she had knocked.
"Why are you awake?" she asked, somewhat startled.
"I'm usually nocturnal," grumbled Haymitch.
Katniss thought through some of the implications of this. "Then how did you mentor us through the games?"
"I ended up spending a lot of time just watching you sleep and guessing what you'd done during the day."
"Anyway," Katniss said abruptly, "I need to talk to you about something. Outside."
Haymitch sighed, looked behind his shoulder into his room, then came forward and closed the door. "You really don't get the whole 'surveillance' thing, do you?"
"What? I said," Katniss lowered her head and voice, "outside."
Shaking his head as he started for the exit, Haymitch explained. "Why not try to naturally lead me outside? Its kind of obvious now."
"I'm, like, super-traumatized at this point, so let's not criticize all my strategic actions, all right?"
Haymitch shrugged. "Fair enough."
Outside, the train slept while it received maintenance at the station. Katniss hugged herself against the bracing breeze and frosty air.
"So," she began, "President Snow basically said that if I don't convince everyone that I'm in love with Peeta, everyone I know is going to get murdered."
Haymitch's eyes widened and he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me this sooner? 'Everyone you know' includes me!"
"I knew that would motivate you."
Releasing her, he patted various pockets in search of alcohol, located some, and deftly consumed it. After a long pause in which he ran a hand repeatedly through his sweaty hair and took some deep breaths, he addressed her again more calmly.
"You two have been doing well so far. You definitely have the Capitol viewers convinced-but they're the easy ones, and they're not on the verge of rebelling. It's hard to gauge what a District citizen with no prior knowledge of your personality will make of all this."
"But, think, even if we pull it off, I'll have to marry Peeta," Katniss said, "And be with him the rest of my life."
Haymitch raised his hands to the sky. "Oh, woe is you! You'll have to spend the rest of your life with a handsome and talented baker at the cost of not having everyone you know killed!"
"But, Gale-"
He hopped up the steps and back onto the train. "Tragedy of the century!"
Katniss stared out at the dark country landscape as she heard the door shut loudly behind her, thinking about her future life with Peeta the handsome and talented baker. Stars that had been hidden to her of late by the lit roads of the Victor's Village blinked down at the unfamiliar terrain. She eventually returned to her room to evade the cold, and had an uncomfortable night.
Putting on clothes that had been laid out for her, Katniss made her way to breakfast. The beautiful display of foods was less impressive to her now that she was no longer in poverty thanks to her Game winnings.
"What is this?" she poked at what appeared to be a tiny bird with a shiny, silver fork. "Pheasant? That's not a breakfast food."
Effie smiled, dabbing at her plastic face with a dark cloth napkin. "Oh, you would be surprised at what can and can't be qualified as 'breakfast' food."
"And I think you would be surprised at just how few people actually consider pheasant a breakfast food," Katniss said, smiling back over a forkful of pancakes.
Effie set her napkin down. "Well-"
Katniss stood up from the table, and her chair clattered behind her. "No, you don't understand!You can't screw around with breakfast like this! There are some foods you eat for breakfast," she pointed to one half of the table, hands pressed together, "and there are some you don't!" she gestured to the other side.
Haymitch covered his face with his hand as she marched out of the train, which was at least still stopped. She marched angrily down the tracks with no particular destination in mind but away. Taking a seat on the rails, she glared at her hands and felt an amount of angst she felt was justified because she had killed several people in her lifetime.
"You're right, you shouldn't eat birds for breakfast," came the voice of a handsome and talented baker.
"Yeah, thanks," Katniss said with a voice loaded with sarcasm in the same way that a fist can be loaded with a roll of quarters. Under her breath, she added, "Idiot."
He took a seat beside her. "Have you been able to get much sleep?"
She shook her head.
"Me neither. And while I can't get rid of the PTSD nightmares you've been having, I did bake you," he pulled a fluffy, warm looking loaf out from behind his back, "this."
Without looking over, Katniss grabbed the bread with one hand, and threw it directly out into a bush. Peeta initially appeared to be shocked, sad, even, but he recovered well, and stood to his feet and offered her a hand up.
"Come on, let's go back. I want to show you something."
She followed, not reluctantly, but indifferently. He took her into his room, where every wall had finished or partially finished paint canvases leaning against it, and easels were set up everywhere in a sort of maze. Katniss instantly recognized the scenes from their games, depicted in harsh, wild strokes.
"What do you think of them?" he asked.
Katniss folded her arms, then brought a fist to her mouth. "I'll go easy on you, since you are very much an amateur, but any depth your concepts had has been lost in the medium. Your lack of artistic realism doesn't lend itself well to the graphic nature of what you are trying to produce, killing your potential effect on the viewer. The rough edges you've given your work with a clearly non-fluid motion have a similar affect on the more physical depictions. In the name of constructive criticism, it is my job to inform you that this is plebeian trash."
"Thanks, Katniss," Peeta said, looking down at the floor and resting his hand on a corner of one of his canvases.
"Anytime."