Strarting

President Snow paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, at the sight of his Great-Granddaughter. Katalina was not one to be up and about early, but she seemed to have been up for hours. Her bubblegum hair lay flat and dry around her face and he could just see her cat ears peeking out of them. Snow had always thought the ears were rather cute, he thought the tail and whiskers was going a little too far however. He often considered trying to convince his granddaughter to have them removes. Kat hated them he knew and he wasn't a big fan of them. He kept it to himself, however. For one, he knew it was a loosing battle anyways and two, the Capitol people adored it, so...

As usual, Kat was dressed in her own personal style that was not common in either the capitol or the Districts. She wore a hot pink jacket made of a slightly stiff material and a white, spaghetti strapped top with pink cargo pants, one leg rolled up to her knees while the other hung to her feet loosely and hot pink kicks. She had bugged and bugged every stylist in the Capitol to make her a pair, after coming across a picture of someone wearing them hundreds of years ago. The Capitol had gone wild when she finally got them and suddenly every kid in the Capitol wanted one. Kat had threatened the stylists with their lives over this. If they sold a pair to anyone else she would have them executed, and Snow was quick to back her up. She never used her power like this so it proved how important it was to her that this just be her thing.

"Good Morning!" She chirped happily to him.

Snow lowered his fork back to his plate and examined her. She wasn't paying attention however. She sat down and cheerfully thanked the Avox that placed her breakfast in front of her. Snow shook his head at this. If he had told her once he had told her a thousand times, there was no need to thank the Avoxes. She did it anyways, and Snow had decided a while back to just let it go. She'd probably grow out of it in a few years.

"Well you up early," Snow said at last and Kat grinned at him.

"Why not," she shrugged. "Am I not allowed to be up early for a change?"

Snow gave a slight shrug that made his shoulders sting. "I suppose it's alright."

Kat giggled and then her smile quickly vanished when she looked down at her plate. She gave an ever so slight sigh, placed her fork down, and then folded her hands neatly in her lap. Then she proceeded to return her smile as though nothing had happened. "What is it?" Snow wondered.

Kat shook her head, "Nothing."

Snow was already craning his neck to see her plate. Sure enough, placed neatly on top of her warm stack of pancakes, were two freshly cut strawberries. "Idiot!" he shouted loudly at the nearest Avox. The Avox jumped and Kat nearly leapt out of her chair with a stifled yelp. "Are you trying to kill her? Well, what are you still standing there for?" He shouted. The Avox quickly dipped its head and took the plate from the girl and disappeared through a door.

Kat sat in silence a moment. Then she seemed to get back her positive spirit. "So, this year is a Quarter Quell, right?" she asked brightly.

Snow paused, the bit he'd bee trying to take since she walked in again halfway to his mouth. He knew for a fact Kat didn't like the Hunger Games. He could remember when she was young and her mother allowed her to begin watching the games. She had cried for every tribute that died. It wasn't as bad anymore. She only cried when a younger tribute or a disabled tribute or any other kind of underdog, died. When a more normal tribute died she tried to remain impassive, but her eyes always grew wet. When a Career was taken down, she remained hard face, but Snow knew when she was in her room alone, she cried for them, too. She always became rather bitter when the games rolled around and she never took any interest in past games or other game traditions. So why was she bringing them up now? Had she finally come to enjoy them?

"Yes," he replied suspiciously.

"I thought it would be interesting to do a story for school about the Quell," Kat went on casually.

"That would be interesting," Snow agreed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.

"So, to do a proper one, I figure I need to do interviews of the districts as well as the Capitols."

Snow stuck the bite in his mouth and chewed slowly. An Avox came a placed a new plate in front of her. She immediately stuffed a forkful of pancake in her mouth and chewed it slowly, watching with intent blue eyes.

"Have you talked about this with your mother?"

Kat slowly shook her head and swallowed. "I was kinda hoping that you could..."

Snow nodded in understanding. He didn't think it was a bad idea when he thought about it. It would give her the opportunity to see the Districts first-hand and maybe then she would realize why the games were a good thing. It was also a good way to see how high tension in the districts were. "So you want to visit the Districts and perform interviews," he confirmed. Kat nodded. "Who do you plan to interview?"

Kat shrugged. "The district people, the victors, especially the victors from the second and third Hunger Games. They are both still alive last I heard." Snow nodded and Kat continued. "Then when I get back I can interview Capitols."

Snow nodded, "I'll speak to your mother about it." Kat smiled broadly. Snow stood and left and Avoxes quickly cleared away the remnants of his breakfast. Kat quickly scarfed down her breakfast and was off to her room. Once there, she flopped down on her bed and pulled up her notebook. She quickly scrawled a few questions down on the paper and after a few minuets, her mind began to wander. She was in the middle of daydreaming about the farms she was sure to find in District 10 when a white-clad Peacekeeper yanked her from her thoughts.

"Miss Snow?"

Kat frowned in frustration, "Yes?"

"Your friend would like to talk," the man said in a husky voice.

Kat waved him away. "Just tell her I'm busy."

The man nodded and turned off. She barely had time to get back into her daydreams before, once again, she was interrupted. "Well now. Isn't that interesting."

A low warning growl escaped Kat's throat. The dark-haired boy leaning on her door frame smirked. "Go away, Slader."

"Now why would I wanna do that?" The boy wondered allowed.

"Because if you don't I'll bite you," Kat threatened gnashing her teeth for emphasizes.

Slader gave an amused laugh at this. "Sorry Lina, your mother hasn't given you cat teeth to match yet."

Kat sneered at him. Slader was the son of the current Head Gamemaker. Kat couldn't stand him. He was cocky, arrogant and everything else she hated in people. Admittedly, however, they had a lot in common. He hated the games as well, and hated living in the Capitol. He wasn't as unfortunate as Kat, however. His parent's allowed him to make his own fashion decisions, so he appeared considerably normal. The only thing was that he had allowed his mother to convince him to put red, orange, and yellow in his black hair, in a manner that looked as though it was a cluster of cloths that had been lit to fire. This had been done by the District 12 Stylist for the games. Cinna hadn't been fond of doing it at first, but they threatened him with his job, so he gave in.

"If you call me Lina again I'll show you just how cat-like I am," Kat growled dangerously.

"What?" he snorted, "You'll pull an Enobaria?" He was referring to the District 2 victor from a games before even their parents' times, of course. The one who ripped a fellow tribute's throat out with her teeth. Kat had heard that story a few times from Grandfather Snow. It was one of the most famous of it's time.

"Go away!" Kat snarled at him.

He threw his hands up innocently and said, "Alright, alright! I'll go." But he didn't budge.

"Slader."

"Why are you being so rude?" he wondered. "I just wanted to talk."

"And I don't" Kat told him.

"What's going on here?" Kat heard her great-grandfather's voice and stuck out her tongue at Slader. The boy whipped his head around to look at the approaching President.

"Nothing, Sir," Slader stammered. "Just talking."

"Go, Boy," Snow told him. "I need to talk to Katalina alone!"

Slader ducked his head down and was quickly gone. Snow turned and smiled warmly at Kat, who returned the smile. "So I managed to convince your mother to let you go. You'll spend two weeks in each District. That will get you home around time for the Quell reading."

Kat smiled. "Thanks."

Snow nodded his head and added, "Begin packing, you'll leave for District 1 in two days."

He then turned to leave. "Grandpa, wait!" Snow paused and cocked his head in a manner that showed he was listening. "Could you get me access to all of the previous games? I want to know a little bit about the past games and victors."

He nodded approval and then was gone. Kat smiled, this was going so perfectly. She then stood and began preparing for the trip. She was excited to see District 1 itself, but it's people she could live without. From what she could tell they were almost as bad as the Capitol people.

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