The Stars

by Takai No Hibiki

Series of oneshots. In District 3 there is a nameless group of people whose crimes go unpunished because their interests coincide with that of the Peacekeepers. They were thieves, hired hands who sometimes killed, but they were the closest thing to a family Pyro had. When one of them is sent to the Games, the rest are forced to come to terms with the nature of their job.

2. Love

The Stars

Title: Love

Characters: Pyro, Cuan

Word Count: 452

Warnings: Dubious teaching methods, dubious wording left up to interpretation

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

Notes: I didn't mean for it to sound sexual, I swear. But interpret it as you will. This probably takes place after Introduction.

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002: Love

Pyro loved his family, loved them with every fibre of his being, loved them until he was sure his heart would someday give from the sheer immensity of it.

It was in his mother's honeyed smile and wrinkled, tired green eyes that were just one shade darker than his own. It was in her fingers, worn from years in the factory working with small machinery, and in the fabrics that she once draped over him in the cold of the winter nights.

It was his father's greying hair and strong posture, the solid wall that always traveled and surveyed the path before him, the back that guided him.

And in his sister it was her bright voice, forever in awe and wonder at the world around her however bleak the sleet grey buildings of District 3 were or how she trembled in the Reaping among her closest friends.

It was in the memories he had of them as a family in their tiny apartment, sitting around a battered table and a dingy lightbulb and laughing and clutching each other in their hysterics.

Pyro thought he knew what true, pure love was until Cuan graciously stole that from him one day.

He'd argued until he choked on dust and dirt particles in the musty place where they had decided to stay until morning.

Cuan, with his manipulative nature and charming snake's smile, did not know what love was.

Syarnark, with his endless supply of smiles and optimism in the face of refuse and the stench of death, did not know what love was.

Matiy, with her absentminded pondering and childlike view of the world, did not know what love was.

He went on and on, a dull flame he long thought dead reignited by Cuan's small, offhand comment.

The memories of his family burned in his eyes, burned his throat as he unburied their smiles and their laughter and their hugs, all of which had been consumed by the thick and endless smog over District 3.

Cuan listened to his rant patiently, until he ran out of breath and out of emotion.

He handed him a worn paring knife with dirt pressed into the crevices of the handle, gave him his first bitter taste of blood, and taught him a different kind of love.

And when he asked the man later, in the dark of the night when even people like them were within the reaches of slumber, whether or nor he believed love even existed, Cuan replied:

"I do not ask for your love, but your loyalty, and the strength that comes of it. But if love will grant you that strength, then who am I to tell you what to believe?"