As the pedestal rises and Katniss finds herself staring at the cornucopia, for the Nth time all she can really do is sigh in mild exasperation.
She can see Rue roll her eyes as Thresh does a little tap dance on his own pedestal. Clove is headbanging to some random music she has playing in her head, Cato just looks as murdery as ever, if in a weirdly non antagonistic way.
Glimmer has a blank eyed look that means she's probably very, very bored at the moment. Marvel just looks confused, for some reason.
Foxface, well she's just tapping her foot and completely inscrutable otherwise.
Peeta on the other hand is quite obvious in his disdain, as he snaps his fingers to a dull rhythm.
The rest, well Katniss hadn't bothered to learn their names and none of them had bothered to learn hers either, and it had so far been a mutually beneficial agreement.
It honestly probably said something about them that they hadn't learned each other's names in what must have been several centuries of interaction by now.
Then again their situation wasn't exactly normal anyway. Katniss barely reacted once the sixty minute timer had ended, letting off an annoyingly loud siren. She did glare at nothing as her head rang with the sound.
Unlike what most expected, none of the tributes ran towards the pile supplies, which usually lead to a bloodbath in most games. Instead there was a mild silence before they all sighed in resignation shuffling towards the immense pile of weapons and supplies.
They all arrive at the same times, having shuffled along with an eerie synchronicity, Katniss couldn't care less as she flopped onto the ground in tired annoyance. The soft green grass was welcoming in its warmth even if she had just slammed her face into it. She paid the other tributes no mind as they stared at her for a moment before plopping onto the ground alongside her.
They all just laid on the grass, breathing quietly in silence.
"Hey Twelve," Clove breathed out, causing Katniss to roll over onto her back in order to look at the homicidal maniac, Peeta craning his neck in order to do the same.
The female Tribute from district two was sitting up against one of the supply piles, an oddly pensive expression on her face. "Boy toy over their is a baker right?" She asked neither of them bothered to answer, Clove must have taken that as a yes.
"So does that mean he was named after pita bread?"
Silence descended again as all of the other tributes sat up, rolled over, or looked down in order to give the brunette strange looks. Peeta had a blank look on his face like he was rethinking his entire life, before a snort of laughter escaped him.
Katniss on the other hand paused to think about the question for a second, then she calmly grabbed the thing nearest to her from the supply pile next to her and threw it at Clove. Ignoring it as Peeta descended into a fit of hysterical laughter.
Clove on the other hand, blinked down at the knife sticking out of her chest, having pierced her straight through the heart. "That's fair." She gurgled out before slumping into a bloody giggle that just sounded wrong, the sound only ended when a cannon sounded announcing her dead.
Peeta Kept laughing even as Cato looked at the dead body of his fellow Tribute. "So she deserved that, but I'm still killing you next time around." Katniss rolled her eyes before glaring at a still Hysterical Peeta, smacking him on the back of the head.
The blond boy didn't even react, only turning over to look at her tears spilling out of his eyes as he laughed hard enough she was certain he had broken a rib. "Katniss- you don't" he tried before he started laughing even harder. "My Mom she-snrrk- she hates Pita Bread! It all makes sense!"
She blanked out at that as she thought that through, before letting out a groan that expressed her immense pain. Rolling over back onto her face, she decided she was just going to sleep.
It took the Game master several threats, and four hours before they just decided to blow the cornucopia up along with the twenty three still living tributes.
At least she'd managed to get a three hour Cat nap out of the deal.
Time loops were very exhausting after all.
The First loop had been very trying, with Rue dying, and everything else that led to them almost swallowing nightlock.
The second loop had been just as bad, stumbling through it all over again unsure why they had to do it all over again, and what was going on was incredibly stressful. Especially as they found themselves back on their pedestals very suddenly.
It had all been very confusing and then Katniss had died to a rewired landmine that Clove had thrown at her.
Third time around was just as bad, and it only got worse until the tenth loop. When they all just decided hell with it. Sure it took them all another four loops to figure out they were all stuck in the time loop.
By the thirtieth loop they had all formed a very strange form of comradery even as they all tried to kill each other over and over again. By the thirty fourth they all realized they weren't getting out, all of them had once at least once by then, with Rue being the last to win and Katniss holding the title for most wins.
The next six loops had been incredibly depressing before they all managed to snap back into a functional state of mind.
Loop forty two was game changing, if only Because Katniss had found she could extend the loop through sheer bullheaded stubbornness. That first time around she'd managed to last an extra seven days after her victory, before she'd been snapped back into the loop.
It was nice seeing Prim again.
The rest of them had tried to replicate her feet, with minimal results, only Cato had managed to push an extra day onto his count. Peeta had gotten an extra six hours and Rue managed four, the rest hadn't managed even an hour.
By the sixtieth loop the rest had caught up to Katniss's original seven day, even if she herself had long since extended her time to a month at minimum.
Of course they were still stuck in a murder tournament, and they all wanted to see their families. As a result they were still trying to kill each other on the regular, even if they were all strangely civil about it.
However, killing each other got really boring, really fast. As a result they had, well branched out, new skills, new ways to make each other die horrifically.
She herself had long since figured out how to make arrows curve around obstacles and Cato's Face when an arrow came out of nowhere and hit the apple he was eating was hilarious.
Then things started to get very strange.
It took the gamemasters stopping the game to see if anyone was cheating before anyone really noticed. Just little thing really, Cloves ability to make knives bounce and richotte in ridiculous ways, Peeta somehow hiding well enough that they couldn't find him even with the tracker.
Katniss having shot well over a hundred arrows when her Quiver should have only held thirty.
Then Thresh had said something in bad taste on the hundred and tenth loop. She wasn't really sure how it had started, only that she had been neer incandescent with rage, before she literally caught fire.
It had been an intense near instant thing, one second she was chasing Thresh through the wood having shoved him up against a tree, when she suddenly burst into flame. They had both Frozen in confusion, before She punched him in the face burning his cheek while a stray flame set his coat on fire.
He'd managed to push her away, and for the next three minutes she had been alive, she had been laughing as Thresh ran around like a chicken with his head cut off. His ass was on fire as he failed to put it out before her own fire had killed her.
It had been a rather painful death, but pain had lost its hold on her by the loop seventy. A mutt had ripped her arm off and she'd been forced to beat the thing to death with her own severed arm.
The next six hours she'd managed to stay alive had been hilarious, if only because all the other Tributes had each turned white as a sheet and ran at full speed whenever they spotted her. Though Cato had finally managed to kill her when her fleshy club had been no match for his sword.
After loop one hundred and sixty she'd started losing count, or more precisely stopped bother to count. Peeta at some point had gained the ability to just change the color of skin like a chameleon, Clove could make her knives burst in Icey explosions at her whim.
Cat could do something but Katniss had no Idea what, Rue had supernatural gardening skill that lent themselves into incredibly complex traps that had killed all of them at least once.
Usually in a rather humiliating fashion at that.
It had to have been at least two hundred loops, before she finally managed to push the loop to six months after her victory.
Only to nearly faint when everyone else in the loop suddenly revived in the Victory village. Things only got stranger after that.