Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.
William Shakespeare - Macbeth
When her father first handed her a hunting knife, Betty was six years old. It caught the light of the living room lamps and reflected a white flash against the wall, and flickered as she moved it, examining it.
"Are you mad, Dad?" Betty asked, lip pushing out, tears filling her eyes, "I didn't mean to kill that chipmunk! I was just curious! And it just...just...squish!"
She'd just been playing with it. She hadn't meant to hurt it, but it was moving around so much, and Betty's tiny palms couldn't hold it properly. She had gotten angry and clenched her fists. She really hadn't meant to and had burst into tears the moment it happened.
"Oh, darling, it's alright. I'm not mad," Her father sighed, shaking his head. Betty, sure she was about to be yelled at, what with the way Polly screamed and ran for their mother, and the way she'd been hauled in and sat on the couch to wait for 'her father to talk to her', this was not how she expected the afternoon to go. Hal had a warm washcloth and scrubbed her palms, but he wasn't using the tone her mother used when she said she was okay, but she was actually lying.
"You're not?"
"No, you're just..." Hal sighed, and grinned, "You're just like I was at your age. It's normal. No, in fact, it's fantastic." He said. She realized she was holding the knife, and her father was cleaning around it, the item being pushed into her hand, but she hadn't really registered it, sure she was going to be grounded forever.
"Do you know what this is, Betty?" Her father asked.
Betty frowned, tilting her head, looking around her. Their house was beautiful and glamorous. Even the houses of others in District 2 were not as decorated or grand as hers; she'd seen the inside of other people's houses, and nothing quite compared.
She pulled a thought from way back, blinking at her father. She didn't understand the words, not fully, but she knew how to form them to speak an answer.
"The knife you used to win," She answered confidently. Her father, kneeling before her, smiled.
"Indeed it was, bunny," Her father said, never looking prouder than at that moment, "And it's yours now."
Betty ran her fingers along the leatherworking of the knife, her feet kicking against the edge of the couch, her legs still too short to reach all the way to their tiled floor.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm going to train you as my pops trained me. And when you're old enough, you'll volunteer for the Hunger Games, and you'll win. Just like I did."
Betty considered this. She craned her neck back towards the kitchen, where her sister sat with her mother, eating a snack.
"Is Polly learning too?"
A look passed her father's face, almost impossible to catch. And she wouldn't, not at such a tender age. But, in time, Betty would recall that look.
"Polly isn't meant for it, sweetie," Hal replied as carefully as he could, "Only the best is to be trained. And that's okay, you know? Not everyone can volunteer. And we only want the best representing our District."
Betty frowned. She didn't understand why Polly was lesser than her. She adored her older sister, who always made her laugh, had the right answer for everything, and helped braid Betty's hair in the morning.
"But-," Betty began to protest, sure there must have been a mistake down the line until her father chuckled.
"It will be our game together, how about that? Just a Betty and Dad thing," He said, ruffling her hair, "Me and Polly have other things we do together."
Betty, who liked her father better than her mother, thought of his proposition in a new light. The idea of having something special, just between the two of them, thrilled her. She nodded enthusiastically, bouncing on the couch.
She wasn't sure what her father meant, exactly, but she was sure it was going to be really, really fun.
She tried to give the knife back to Hal, but he pushed it back towards her.
"It's yours now. I have no more use for it, but god willing, you one day will. You should never go anywhere without it," He said, and Betty nodded solemnly, taking this to heart. Hal stood, and as he did, Betty flipped the knife. She didn't catch it exactly right, and as it twirled, it cut a thin slice across her hand. She winced instantly, tears filling her eyes as she stared up at her father.
He didn't make a fuss like her mother would, instead just stared, almost pensive at the wound, "It's sharp. Let that be a lesson."
Betty, seeing that Hal wasn't going to burst into hysterics over this, swallowed back her tears and gingerly set the knife beside her. She pressed her free palm over the cut and smiled up at her father, wanting to prove she was brave and not a crybaby.
"Good." Hal nodded, finding a bandage to wrap around her hand, "I'm very proud of you, Betty."
The recognition of her strength made her smile all the way to bed.
"Dad?" Betty asked as he helped her under the covers.
"Yes?"
"Can we have a funeral for the chipmunk in the morning? I feel really bad about it still."
Hal hesitated, and then laughed, as though he'd forgotten something. "Betty, I wouldn't worry about that thing. You should be playing, not arranging funerals."
"But I want to."
There was a long pause. Finally, her father relented.
"If it really means that much, I'll have your mother help you." He came to sit on the edge of her bed, "Now sleep; it's far past your bedtime."
In the darkness of her room, once her father kissed her goodnight and her mother came to turn the lights off, Betty unraveled the bandage. She pressed her fingers to the side of the cut, fascinated, and watched new blood ooze from the wound. Her father hadn't gotten all of the mush from that poor animal off her palms, and she had the thought that it was intermingling. Not the most sanitary, mind you, but that's not where the mind of a six-year-old girl went.
Instead, she thought about how it was dead and bloody, but Betty was alive and bloody.
But their blood looked the same. Despite knowing that it shouldn't, this hypnotized her to no end.
That was the start of it; the day that would push her destiny forward.
If you were to ask her later if she wished she could go back and change it all, Betty wouldn't know what to tell you. All she knew is that on that night, Betty felt invincible. She felt like the luckiest girl in the world. She felt like her path was being cleaved, so cleanly, and she didn't have to struggle or worry about it at all.
Later in her life, she'd hate any idea that she was anything like her father; a sadistic, psychopathic killer. Once she knew how he won, and what he did to win, she'd despise everything he stood for.
But, she'd mostly hate it because she feared, deep down, she was exactly like him.
But by the time she had a moment to consider this, she was already being risen onto the platform of the arena, seventeen years old, telling herself she could battle her demons later…she first needed to battle the contestants in the Hunger Games.