#Gale invited me to stay which I guess I won’t be doing

[sentienceisoverrated]

Just finished Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first time and Wither’s YEETED ME THROUGH A PORTAL

[thehopefuldandelion]

Not Him

Thank you @tindomrl​ for nagging my lazy butt to write this.

here for ao3. here for fanfiction.net

everlark.

I do not own any of these characters:)

***

��No, not him. Not fucking Peeta Mellark. He can’t be here.” I whisper to Annie while smoothing down my blazer and dress pants.

Peeta Mellark. The epitome to my existence. I am content, I have a steady boyfriend and a soon to be great job. He can’t be here to ruin it.

It all started on a balmy, summer day in 2nd grade. He pushed me off those darned yellow swings causing painful scrapes to appear on my knees and rough mulch to tangle in my hair. We grew up together in Panem, a small town in Oregon. I always liked him even though we never talked. And then that fucker pushed me off the swings. I know what you are thinking, “Katniss you were a little girl get over it”. There were other instances. In middle school, he won the award of having the most attendance which I was second to by 1 singular day. Darned flu. Or in Sophomore year when he spilled punch all over my dress at Homecoming on purpose. It gets even better, though. I was Valedictorian for our Senior Class and guess what he did when he found out. He stole my cap and gown. I’m not shitting you. He did and I will never forget it. This is why I hate Peeta Mellark. He’s a stickup, selfish prick and I, Katniss Everdeen, will never forgive him.

“Katniss, I’m sure he just works here,”she said reassuringly.“I doubt he’s here for the interview”.

“I hope so,” I mumbled under my breath.

My attention is focused on the man who had just come out of an office. No way. No fuckin’ way. How was I supposed to know that the very company I wanted a job at, was CEO’d by none other than Peeta Mellark. He looks around the room and locks eyes with me before saying,“Thank you all for coming today. As you are aware I am in need of a new secretary because my past employee is on maternity leave. Good luck!”

And with that Peeta Mellark walks back into his office, and calls the first interviewee in.

It seems that 2 hours pass until I am called in. I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants and take a deep breath. Why am I so nervous? What if he remembers me? Oh god. What if he brings it-

“Ms. Everdeen, I presume?”he asks cutting into my thoughts.

“Yes that is correct,”I respond while shaking his warm, calloused hand.

I briefly look up and lock eyes with him. Oh, those blue eyes and floppy curls. How did I ever hate this man. His past slender teenage figure has evened out, shown through the broad shoulders and muscular arms that make up his physique. He is hot. No not just hot, beautiful. Katniss, snap out of it. You have a boyfriend for God sakes. You loathe him.

“Wait...Katniss?”Peeta inquires with a glowing look on his face.

I pause, thinking of how to go about this. Do I pretend not to know him. This could cost me a job. Ah, what do I do?

“Peeta. It’s so good to see you again. How has life been treating you?”

“It’s been what, 7 years? Wow. Everything is going well for me. At least pertaining to the business. My love life is nonexistent and-well, I should probably stop before I get into it. “Peeta stared deeply into my eyes before glancing at his desk,”Anyway, why do you want to work at Mellark Enterprises?”

“My sister, Prim, is in medical school and I want to help her with student loan. Not only that but I need to pay my rent and pay bills and-”

“Ms. Everdeen, Katniss, calm down. It’s ok.” he says while reaching towards my hand and holding it.“Ignoring all the bills to be paid and debts to pay off, why do you really want to work here, Katniss?”

I look at our joined hands and quickly unclasp them, moving my hand to rest on top of my thigh. I can still feel the warmth from his large one. “Honestly, I didn’t even know this was your company. I just want a job and thought that being a secretary was a great way to start.”

Peeta peered at me with those baby blue eyes causing me to squirm in my seat. “Thank you, Katniss. I will go over your resume and get back to you if you get the position.”

As I embarked on the journey from the chair to the door, I heard Peeta say something the made my heart stop, “I look forward to seeing you soon, Ms. Everdeen.” He gave me a crooked grin causing butterflies to erupt in my stomach. Crap. What is he doing to me.

And with that I left the room.

***

Annie calls me later that afternoon and I recall all that had happened today.

“I can’t believe it was him. Why him? Of all the 7 billion people on this earth he could be my boss.”

“I mean, Katniss, you don’t have to take the job when you get it.”

“If I get it and I need this job, though. No one else is hiring.”I searched for days but not a single business needed another employee. I felt a spark of hope when I saw the neon pink flyer stating a secretary position at Mellark Enterprises was available, that is, until him.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you Katniss. He can’t be that bad. When you get the job just take it. I don’t think you'll regret it,” Annie instructed me.

With a groan, I told Annie bye and hung up.

I hope I don’t regret this.

Behind me, I hear the sound of the door to the apartment opening. Thank goodness Gale was home.

“Hey Catnip,” Gale greets me with a peck while taking off his tie.

“Hey,” I respond unenthusiastically,”How was your day?”

“Great, actually. You know the new intern I was telling you about?”

“Yeah. Madge?”

“Yup. God, she's great, Katniss. I’m so glad I snatched her up before anyone else could get their claws in her.”

“That’s great, babe,” I say while peering at him skeptically. He has shown more and more interest in her since, well, 2 months ago. I trust Gale. Yeah we have our spats and our fiery personalities don’t exactly fit perfectly but I couldn't live without him. He’s my rock. He has been since we were 10 and met in the woods of all places. Both our dads liked to hunt so we always went along and one day we bumped into each other, literally.

I’ve noticed that Gale and I seem to be distancing ourselves form each other. Not purposefully, but we don’t have that connection we used to have. Ugh, just another thing to add to my overflowing plate. There was time when we would kiss passionately until we were exhausted and would go on dates almost every night but times have changed. Is it possible to fall out of love with someone because if it is, I am with Gale. Now, don’t take that the wrong way. I’m not breaking up with him. It’s relieving to have someone to talk to but I just don’t feel what I used to. Maybe I am going crazy.

“Hey, babe?” Gale called out to me from the living room bringing my thoughts back to reality.

“Yeah,”I responded hoping he wanted more from me than to bring him dinner.

“Can you get me some milk?”

“Fine,” I unwillingly grumbled back. When I brought it to him he had a dismissive attitude towards me and added on to what he previously said.

“I have a convention for work so I won’t be home over the weekend.”

“Ok, that’s great. I’ll just stay with Annie.” I didn’t want to be alone.

“Sounds good, Catnip.”

He would be the death of me.

***

A week or two goes by with no word from Peeta about the job. I might as well admit defeat. Yet again, Peeta frickin Mellark decides to ruin my life.

After grabbing my yoga mat and putting on leggings and a t-shirt, I go meet up with Annie for our twice a week zen class. The classic “Downward Dog” and “Balasana” always calm me down.

Afterwards, we hit a coffee shop where Annie’s fiancé, Finnick, waits.

“Hey, hon,” Annie tells him lovingly. “Aw, you got me my favorite. Thanks.” She then proceeds to give him a languid kiss causing me to turn away.

Sometimes I wish Gale and I were more like Annie and Finnick. Our kisses aren’t “languid” and he always get me coffee which I hate. I know, I know I could just break up with him but I don’t want to lose his company or friendship. Woe is me.

“So, Finnick, what have you been up to?” I asked him.

“Oh, you know, getting drunk, killing mobsters, giving my beautiful fiancé the best of everything,” Finnick replies, giving Annie doe eyes. “I forgot to tell you, I invited a friend to join us so I hope that's ok.”

“Thats fi-,”I stop myself.

Peeta Mellark, the very same Peeta Mellark who could be my boss, was walking towards the table.

In my trashy t-shirt and ratty leggings with sweaty hair sticking to my forehead I knew I looked awful.

*sniff sniff* And smelled awful.

Shit.

I glare at Finnick and scowl. I hope he feels the pain I’m experiencing.

“Katniss, hey!” Peeta made no comment towards my outfit or smell so that’s a good sign.

I cleared my throat before saying,”Hello, Peeta.”

My cheeks were burning up and I could tell they were a dark pink from embarrassment. He set a drink in front of me. If it’s coffee I swear to god I’ll-

“I didn’t know what you liked so I guessed. Is hot chocolate ok?” he commented shyly.

“Um, yeah it's perfect,”I told him. “So, you know Finnick?”

“We go way back. Freshman year of college we were roommates in those crusty, dilapidated dorms. He was the one who took, no dragged me to parties and set me up on dates. I don’t know where I’d be without him.”

“Hopefully dead,” I grumbled underneath my breath.

Peeta gave me a peculiar look before turning away. So what if he heard me. I doubt I got the job and I loathe him anyway.

Annie gives me a sympathetic glance before telling the table that she and Finnick have to leave for their “couples class”.

I hope she and Finnick die a fiery death. I can’t leave, that would be rude, but at the same time I can’t sit here for another hour small talking to Peeta fuckin’ Mellark. Suck it up, buttercup.

“Oh, Katniss, this is the perfect opportunity to tell you that you got the job!” Peeta declared to me while grinning. Why is he grinning? He’s probably conniving plans on how to torture me. Wouldn't be surprised. “That is, if you will accept.”

I had no other option but to say yes.

“Ok, that's awesome. I’ll take it.”

Those 6 words, I would soon learn, would change my life forever.

***

Waking up and realizing you have a steady job and will be able to pay rent should cause a person to leap for joy. I can’t. Not when the job is at Mellark Enterprises. God, today will be awful.

As soon as I arrive to the 8th floor, Peeta is there, welcoming me. He shows me around from the break room to his office, and finally my desk. Which I forgot to mention is about 10 feet from his. Crap.

I’m in deep shit.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, Katniss,” Peeta comments, his eyes soft and grin, again, crooked. His floppy blonde, curly hair is unruly and of course he rolled his button up sleeves up to his elbows causing his pale smooth skin and muscular arms to show. I felt something move south, not caused by my actual boyfriend, and I wanted to moan. Oh, to push him against his desk and him to take me right then and then. To feel his strong arms wrapped around me and his tongue twirling with mine. That’s hot. Wait, what? What is this man doing to me?

“M...Me too,” I stumble over my words still hypnotized by his beauty.

I notice that Peeta was staring off into the distance and has a slight smirk on his face. Hm, I wonder what he’s thinking about. He shakes himself out of it and slams his office door behind him.

I go about my first day at Mellark Enterprises as secretary to the one and only Peeta Mellark. Nothing strange or abnormal happens. I go home, as usual. Gale is passive aggressive, as usual. But my mind is swirling with sinful thoughts of Peeta. Why him? Why does my body react to him this way. My mind loathes him but my heart...I just don't know what to do. He’s the guy that taunted me for years and is now acting like we have been best friends for decades. My emotions can’t seem to stay in check when I’m around him. I’m so conflicted and unsure of what to do.

The next day, after a long night of dreams I should not be having, I quickly make my way to work.

“Mellark Enterprises, this is Katniss Everdeen speaking. How may I help you?”

“Yes, I am his secretary.”

“Yes I will leave him with your number ma’am.”

“Ok, bye.”

Ugh, ew. I do not need Peeta’s booty calls asking me about him. What he does is his business. Right? I wouldn't want to be one. No, no way.

His lips on mine, hands roaming.

Me moaning. Lips caressing every part of my neck.

Blonde curls falling on his face. Calloused hands unwinding my braid, kissing each strand.

Snap. Out. Of. It.

He’s your boss, my god, Katniss.

After the weird phone call this morning, I avoided Peeta as much as a secretary could do (not well) and quickly scurried home. I told Annie that I had a bad day and need some alone time which she understood.

I decided to make a detour before going home and bought a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the local supermarket because boy did I need it. I unlocked the door and opened it into my apartment. Walking to the kitchen, I set the white wine on the counter and ransacked the refrigerator looking for some carbs. The door to the bedroom was closed, that’s odd. I shrugged my shoulders and sat on the couch, eating pasta and drinking some cheap wine. My ideal night. after about an hour of this, I heard a voice...2 voices to be exact coming from the bedroom. I glanced at the front door-wait those aren't my shoes, or jacket. Opening the bedroom door slowly, with a pan because there could be a murderer in my apartment, I saw what I hadn’t expected to see at all.

“GALE! Who the fuck is that.”

“Katniss, I can explain.” he said hurriedly.

“Who is she?” the blond bimbo said.

“Madge, she’s nobody,” he told her trying to calm her down.

“Wait, Madge. As in your intern Madge?” I said, disgusted with Gale. “How dare you Gale. Damn you. Leave and NEVER come back.”

“Katniss, please, baby, I can explain.”

“I said LEAVE. You too, Madge,” I spit out.

He quickly gathered his clothes and scurried out the door, taking Madge with him. I just can’t believe he would do that. Why? I know things haven't been the best lately, but to cheat on me?

I could barely stand so I sank to the floor and bawled, trying to pick up the pieces of my broken life.

[luthorao3]

Roisa Secret Santa | Mac & Cheese

Prompt: Mac & Cheese, side of angst Rating: T (teen)  Word count: 2009 words 

merry christmas, @only-freakin-sunflowers!!!  

it’s been so much fun writing this little piece and dropping into your inbox to spread that festive cheer this winter. (im dreadful at keeping secrets when im excited about something - the amount of times i panicked that i’d sent an ask without anonymous being ticked, my god...) i really wanted to add an over the top cutesy ending to this, but when i tried to write it, it just didn’t fit with the foundations that i’d already set down, so i’m sorry if you’re expecting that! i hope this story does your prompt justice, and thank you for all the lovely replies to my asks these past few weeks! 

i hope that the next few days bring you so much joy (and some freakin good food, man), and that the new year is kind to you. <3 

Luisa’s gaze lingers on the view from their balcony window.

They’ve been in France for three nights, already, tucked into a snowy city with a Swiss border, and mountains that threaten the stars sitting peacefully in their back yard. Luisa feels the biting chill even in spite of her many layers, but does not make to enter the wooden chalet that Rose had secured them for the week. The glass doors behind her reveal a lamp-lit bedroom and the suitcase that they never bothered to unpack, given that they might, at any point, need to make a speedy escape.

Luisa cranes her neck to see the row of wooden buildings that line the mountain road, instead, some small and quaint, others triple-storey and magnificent, all of them like a scene from a real festive movie – the kind with snow piled up to the windows, and hot cocoa with marshmallows floating on top, and innocent mishaps that threaten to ruin Christmas for good, but never actually succeed.

It’s not Luisa’s first white Christmas, and yet the novelty has never really worn off.

Behind her, the sound of a sliding door opening and closing signals Rose’s return from the shower.

Warm arms wrap tightly around her from behind, struggling around her middle and the three separate jackets that Luisa has smuggled herself into. Rose snorts a delicate laugh when she barely manages to rest her chin on Luisa’s shoulder, the faux fur around her hood tickling her cheek. She smells like hotel shampoo and warmth, and Luisa sinks back against her with a sigh.

“Are you still brooding?” Rose asks by her ear.

Luisa considers the question before answering with a quiet, “A little.”

“What can I do to make it better?” Her gaze flicks to one side. “We can turn on the hot tub.”

“I’m not really in the mood for that. Besides, it’s freezing.”

Rose’s voice lilts, suggestive, when she offers, “I can keep you warm.”

Luisa straightens, relieving Rose of her weight, and turns around. She balks when she realises Rose is wearing nothing but a thick white bath robe and a pair of complimentary slippers, damp red hair hanging limp over one shoulder, inviting a frost. “Are you serious? Get inside right now!” Luisa’s concern for her far outweighs the lingering uneasiness that had led her out onto the balcony, where she’d hoped the frigid air would cool her temper. “You’re going to catch your death.”

Rose stops Luisa from man-handling her inside with gentle but firm hands on her biceps.

“Wait. Talk to me before we go back in there. I know you’re upset, and I don’t want to bring this to dinner with us. Tell me how you’re feeling? Let me help.”

Luisa’s mouth gapes like a fish forced to the surface. She clicks it shut with more force than she means. “I’m feeling cold just looking at you. Please can we just—” She attempts to usher Rose back toward the balcony door, but Rose is firm and unrelenting. Her gaze pierces Luisa like a spear, rooting her in place, until Luisa drops her arms with a sigh. “I don’t want to do this right now. Can we go sit down inside, where you’re less likely to contract hypothermia?”

“No,” Rose answers plainly, crossing her arms. She looks less affected by the weather. If not for the gooseflesh crawling up her exposed throat, Luisa might assume she couldn’t even feel the cold. “I’m sick of pretending that nothing’s wrong, or biting my tongue and hoping that whatever’s upsetting you will eventually just go away. It isn’t, and it’s—” her acerbic tone gentles, the words whispering out of her in visible puffs of white breath, “it’s not fair for you to pretend that you’re okay just to keep me from worrying. I know you, Luisa, I know when something is bothering you.”

Luisa blinks a sheen of moisture from her eyes and lowers them to the knot in Rose’s bathrobe. She tugs on it with gloved fingers and then re-ties it tighter than it had been, all the while with Rose waiting patiently for her to speak. Casting a look over her shoulder, Luisa eyes the distance to the ground from their balcony perch, and considers how badly she might hurt herself if she were to jump.

She’d survive the fall. Probably, the landing could do little damage…

The thought brings a soft tut from beneath her tongue, and she releases the robe with a cloudy sigh.

“It’s Christmas,” she whispers, unable to meet Rose’s gaze. Instead, it lingers in the fine silver stitching details on the robe’s lapels – spun silken snowflakes caught in a wintry gale. Just looking at them makes her feel colder. “It’s Christmas Day and I can’t call anyone to wish them a Merry Christmas. I can’t even write. I have no idea what they’re doing, if they’re together, if they’re okay— they have no idea about me, either.” Her expression draws in, bottom lip pulled between her teeth. “I bet they’re not even thinking of me. I bet, if they are, it won’t be anything good.”

It comes out on a breath of laughter that holds no mirth, and Luisa swallows against the lump in her throat.

“I chose to do this,” she says, and Rose wonders which one of them she’s addressing. “I wanted this, us, I chose you. I don’t regret that.” She looks up, finally, her big brown eyes soft and warm and a little watery, sheening against the light coming from the balcony doors. “I don’t regret that,” louder, steadier, her hands coming to rest in the crooks of Rose’s elbows. “I knew this wouldn’t be easy. I’m just… struggling, I guess.”

Rose presses closer, her slippers dragging against the balcony decking.

She presses a cold, soft hand to Luisa’s cheek – holds it there, until the warmth of Luisa’s skin inspires feeling back into her fingers.

“No one’s faulting you for that,” she murmurs, her voice a low hum. “I know it hasn’t been easy, loving me.”

Luisa’s brow wrinkles. “Don’t think that.”

“I don’t blame you for anything, you know? If not for me, you’d be with them, now.”

“Would I?” Luisa bites the inside of her cheek until it dimples. “We never had Christmases like normal families, not like what you’d see on TV. The best Christmas I ever had was when I decided to stay in college over winter break. It was just me and the foreign exchange students; they did potluck in their dorm, and we ate out in the hall on beanbags and pillows, and then we played hide and seek in the library.” Her brow crinkles again, this time fondly. “I made out with a girl from Greece who was built like a professional football player. I can’t even remember her name.”

Rose snorts delicately, warm breath puffing from her nostrils.

The sight draws a tender smile to Luisa’s mouth.

“You’re not, you know?” she says, stepping forward, lassoing her arms around Rose’s waist and pulling her closer. “You’re not hard for me to love at all. My life would probably be much simpler if you were.”

Rose hangs her arms around Luisa’s shoulders, relaxing against her front.

“It’d be boring,” she agrees, and Luisa snickers. “Sometimes boring is good, when the alternative is going on the run from the law and never seeing your family again.”

“Thanks, I was just getting over that.”

Rose brings both hands to Luisa’s face, this time, squashing her sarcasm between them.

“You’ll never be over that,” she says, and the matter-of-factness of the statement makes Luisa’s breath hitch, but then she never has managed to get over how delicately Rose delivers her killing blows. Rose knows exactly how to turn the world inside out, and she can do it with the same precision it takes for a needle to pop a balloon. The bang makes you jump even when you’re expecting it.

Rose studies her face like she’s looking for a reaction, like she’s waiting for something to happen. Luisa wonders if she’s supposed to protest, but can’t. Won’t. Finally, Rose’s gaze softens. “Next year,” she says, picking her words with care, and with the future so far in the distance Luisa cannot blame her, “I’ll give you a proper Christmas. Dinner, presents, a tree. Anything you want.”

“Anything I want?” Luisa repeats, smiling, but Rose’s expression keeps its almost-solemn quality.

“Anything you want,” she agrees. “I’ll take you to Lapland, I’ll buy you your own goddamn reindeer, if that’s what you ask for.”

“I mean, I don’t know the first thing about their diet,” Luisa scoffs, and then her brows draw in tight with thought, “but Google has never failed me before…” Rose shivers, drawing Luisa’s attention quickly back to her. “What’s this about dinner, though? It’s not too late to find somewhere, right? I know it’s not the same as cooking your own, but I think we’re just gonna have to forgive ourselves for that, given the circumstances.”

“Actually,” Rose begins, coy, caressing Luisa’s cheek with the fat of her thumb, “I thought we’d eat in, still. I don’t want to tempt fate, today of all days. It won’t be a Christmas Dinner, or anything even remotely close to it, but I want to do this for you. I want you all to myself tonight, if that’s okay with you.”

“Wait, you want to cook for me?” At Rose’s nod, Luisa’s lips press closed. “Babe, I love you, but you really don’t need to do that.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Luisa clears her throat. “I mean…”

“Wow,” Rose puffs, unable to hide her smile, even if the offence is real. She drops her hands from Luisa’s face, draping her arms back around her shoulders. Their bodies sway together as Rose suppresses a laugh. “Fine then. I won’t cook.”

Luisa squeezes her tighter around the middle. “You can’t cook, sweetie, it’s not a matter of won’t.”

Rose scoffs but does not disagree, until—

“I can manage mac ‘n’ cheese,” she says, lips pursed. “I can make a really good packet mac ‘n’ cheese.”

Luisa’s eyes her, dubious. “You want mac ‘n’ cheese?”

“I do.”

“You want to make us mac ‘n’ cheese out of a box for Christmas Dinner?”

“That’s right.”

“Huh.”

Rose wets her lips and instantly regrets it. Her ears are beginning to ring from the cold.

“Will you eat it, if I do?”

Luisa snorts and nods her head.

“At this point, I’d take peanut butter on toast. Come on, though, let’s get inside before you freeze to death. Popsicle isn’t on the menu tonight.”

As she says it, she untangles Rose’s arms from around her shoulders and ushers her toward the balcony door.

Shivering, Rose shakes her head, taking Luisa’s hands in hers and halting any further movement. At her girlfriend’s confusion, she presses a kiss to each gloved palm, and then her face. Luisa shivers at the feeling of her mouth, cold and wet, against her own. When she draws back, there’s a light in Rose’s eye – a twinkle in the corner, like a star that’s emerged from behind a slow-drifting cloud – that gives her pause.

“I love you,” Rose tells her, all hot, visible breath and a smile so tender that Luisa bites back the urgency to get them both inside, if just to bask in the warmth that is Rose’s unwavering adoration. “I love you so much. If I could change things—” She sighs. She can’t, and so she discards the thought, with effort. “I’m sorry it isn’t everything you deserve. I’m going to do better, Lu, I mean it.”

Luisa bites the inside of her lip, blinking back the glaze of moisture in her eyes – it only attracts the cold.

“We both are,” she promises, sniffing. “Please, can we go inside now?”

Rose laughs and nods her head.

When Luisa next tries to save her from the cold, she gives no protest, and they step hand-in-hand back into the warmth.

[kriscme]

One Life To Live

Hi Readers, here’s the latest chapter.  As usual, thanks to Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take” which you can read on FanFiction and AO3.  Chapter 25 Soon after we arrive, I set to work sweeping the floor clear of dust with the twig broom my father made for me.  Then I take a few logs from the woodpile in the corner and transfer them to the fireplace for use later on.   That done, cooking and eating utensils are placed by the hearth.  Sleeping mats are unrolled, sleeping bags are shaken out and then arranged on top.   It’s like playing house again.  Just as I did when my father brought me here as a child.   I survey my work, satisfied that I’ve made our accommodation as comfortable as I can make it.  I’ve put about three feet between the sleeping mats.  Not so close as to be an invitation, but not so far apart that it looks like I’m keeping him at a distance either.  Because I’m not yet sure how I should proceed. This is all so new to me, and I’m hopelessly out of my depth.  Gale, Peeta even, belong to my teenage years and kissing was as far as it went.  An adult relationship comes with a different set of expectations.  I have to be careful that I don’t start something that could quickly escalate into something I’m not ready for.   But something has started already, a little voice reminds me.  It started when you returned his kisses.   I put my hand to my lips at the memory.  Yes, I returned them.  And with such enthusiasm that it took Marcus by surprise.  But he recovered quickly, and matched passion with passion.  We stumbled over to the couch, displacing a furious Buttercup as we collapsed onto it, barely breaking the kiss.  I welcomed his hand on my breast, and the hand on my behind pulling me against his hardness.  Even the hand between my legs, stroking through the thick fabric of my khaki trousers.   But when he whispered “bedroom” in my ear, I froze.  I was like Haymitch, jolted to rude consciousness by a jug of cold water poured over my head. Shocked, disorientated, confused. What was I doing?  I’m in love with Peeta.  I muttered something about moving too fast and Marcus accepted it, perhaps putting it down to District conservativeness when it comes to sex.   He’s been very solicitous of me these past few days but there’s been no more kisses.  It’s like he’s giving me my space.  The only thing is that I’m not sure I want it.

Since I see no clear solution to the problem, I push it aside for the time being and set to my next task which is to cast out fishing lines to catch my dinner.  Marcus has brought cans of beans and dehydrated meals you add water to.  While I don’t dislike beans, they’re no substitute for freshly caught fish. I brought along my bow but it’s for protection from predators and it won’t be used to bring down waterfowl on this trip. Marcus hasn’t said anything about my hunting, but I suspect anyone who is both conservationist and a vegetarian probably wouldn’t approve.  When the woods are turned into national park, there will be restrictions on hunting. Maybe even a ban.  I have mixed feelings.  I never hunted for sport, only for food.  But it was a hard-earned skill, and one I’ve been very proud of. I can see why it has to be done. I’d much rather a forest teaming with life than a free-for-all for trigger-happy hunters to practice their target shooting. But it will be a sad day, none-the-less.   And that’s another thing that won’t stay the same.  

But what is still the same, for now anyway, are the lake and the concrete house.   To my relief, they were exactly as I left them. Neither showed any sign of recent human activity.  But it’s only a matter of time before others discover it too.  At little more than a half day walk from the meadow, it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened already.   Once the lines are out, there’s nothing to do but wait.  I flop down onto a grassy spot near the bank to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery.   It’s a lovely day.  The sun is warm, but not hot.  The breeze is gentle and just cool enough to be refreshing.  Nature is bountiful here.  Ducks and geese float serenely on the lake.  Birds chatter in the trees.  Frogs croak and the scent of pine fills the air.  In the distance, I see Marcus exploring the area, making notes and taking measurements.  Perhaps he’s planning a viewing platform or something. He said he wants to keep the lake as untouched as possible.  No hunting or fishing huts like they had in the past.   My mind wanders to other times spent here.   With my father, who taught me how to swim in this very lake, and where to dig for katniss roots.   With Gale when I tried to persuade him to escape with me into the woods.  He told me he loved me that day.  But I couldn’t say it back and it changed things between us, far more than the kiss ever did.  At least I could pretend the kiss never happened, since Gale said nothing about it when we next met.  But once a friend has declared love, and it’s not returned, the friendship is over. Maybe not straight away, but its demise is inevitable.  There’s no going back. Peeta would have thought of this. Especially since he’s to be married soon.  Too awkward and painful for all concerned.  Better to put it out of its misery than have it die a lingering death. I haven’t seen him since that strange conversation on my porch when he told me he’d see me around.  The next morning, when I left for work, I didn’t wait for him but marched briskly towards the town.  But I couldn’t help looking back every few minutes, hoping that I had somehow misinterpreted his meaning, and he was behind me trying to catch me up.  He wasn’t.   And then I think of my very last visit to the lake almost a year ago.  It was a stifling hot day.  I had ventured outside with the intention of checking on Haymitch but instead caught Peeta as he was about to go into town.  He was to meet Lace at the swimming pool where they were having swimming lessons together. He asked me along, but the prospect of spending an afternoon in their company as some kind of hanger-on was the last thing I wanted. Suddenly at a loss, I abandoned my earlier plan to visit Haymitch and headed for the woods. All I could think about was Peeta and how suited Lace was for him, and how I wasn’t.  My self-esteem was at its lowest ebb.  I couldn’t think of one admirable quality I possessed.  I couldn’t imagine why anyone would love me.

Instinct more than anything must have propelled my feet towards the lake.  Maybe because this place reminds me of my father and a time when I felt loved.  I ended up staying overnight, unwilling to face the long walk back in the heat.  There was a Victor’s dinner that night but it didn’t occur to me that I’d be missed.   But I was.  They phoned me several times until Haymitch was dispatched to my house to look for me.  I met Peeta the next day as he was headed into town.  He said he had been worried about me, that anything could have happened.  He did look as if hadn’t slept, so maybe he had worried, but he didn’t try to find me.  I didn’t ask why at the time. It didn’t even occur to me.  I was too resentful at the presumption that I couldn’t look after myself.  But still, I could have been stranded in the woods with a broken leg for all he knew.  And here he was, on his way to see Lace. I followed him into town, as he asked.  He had something to tell me that apparently couldn’t wait.   I wasn’t to come over at night anymore to sleep in his guestroom because it made him a bad boyfriend.  I recall he had a visitor that night, probably Lace.  I guess that’s why it was so urgent.  Can’t have the ex-fiance turning up in the middle of the night when the new girlfriend is staying over.   Looking back, that’s when I should have seen the signs and ended it.  None of this insistence that he get his memories back.  All it led to was a year of futility and frustration.  I should have known that my Peeta was dead when his first instinct was to protect Lace rather than me.   I can’t be mad at him.  This is what the hijacking was meant to achieve.  That it didn’t succeed in its full objective to make him completely hate me, is of little comfort.  It took what I cherished most and killed it.  The steadfast devotion was gone.  So too was the undying love.   Perhaps, since he couldn’t love me the way he used to, I should be thankful that Peeta put a stop to the guestroom sleep-overs.   At least it gave me the impetus to make a stand, and get off my backside and do something with my life.  I have friends and a job I love now.   And there’s a man who seems to like me a lot. He’s over by the concrete house right now, getting a campfire started.  He’s not my boyfriend, but would he be, if I opened that door? All I know is that it’s far too soon for me to love anyone.  Anyway, there can’t be much future in it.  He won’t be staying in 12 for ever and I can’t go anywhere.   When I check the fishing lines, I find one has caught a nice trout.  It’s not very big, but plenty enough for one person.  I remove the hook from its mouth and take a folding knife from my pocket to clean and scale it.  Then I walk over to where Marcus is.  He’s got the fire burning nicely and is in the process of emptying a can of beans into a saucepan.   “I’ve got my dinner,” I announce brightly, holding my fish aloft. He glances my way just long enough to take in the fish before he turns his attention back to the beans.  He says nothing. “What?” I exclaim.  His back is turned to me, but I see disapproval in every line. “Nothing,” he says, barely deigning to look at me.  “But I don’t see why you had to kill another living creature when we have plenty of food.   Which, by the way, is undersized. It should have been thrown back.” I stand there gaping at him, completely taken aback.  I’m not used to receiving criticism from Marcus and it takes a few seconds to find my voice.

“It is not undersized.  Well, maybe a little, but not by much.  I don’t get this.  You know I hunt.  Why shouldn’t I eat fish if that’s what I want.  Not everyone wants to eat rabbit food all the time.  Like you.”   “Rabbits don’t eat beans,” he says.  He calmly places the saucepan of beans on the metal grate before standing and turning his attention to me.  “I just don’t see the need to eat meat, that’s all, when we can live very well on a vegetarian diet. “You eat milk and eggs,” I say accusingly. “They come from animals.” “Yes, but we don’t kill the animal to get them. When this place becomes a national park, they’ll be no fishing.  But it’s done now, so you might as well eat it.  It will have lost its life for nothing if you don’t.” I’m so annoyed, I want to take my fish and slap him across the face with it.  It’s almost as if my very reason for existence has been challenged.  My hunting skills are what kept me alive in the Games.  Hunting is what kept myself and my family fed.  He’s never had to worry about where his next meal comes from.  It must be so nice to have choices. “I don’t see that I’ve done anything wrong. Big fish eat little fish.  Big animals eat smaller animals. It’s how nature works.  So get over it.” I look around for something to put my fish in but I don’t see a frying pan.   But then I remember I put some cooking things by the hearth in the concrete house. That suits me just fine.  I could use some distance from Marcus right now. Besides I don’t want to use his fire.  I want my own.  I wouldn’t want to contaminate his by using it to cook meat.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll roast a duck.  That’ll show him. The trouble is that it’s hard to start a fire with just logs.  You need some kind of kindling, and there’s nothing in the house that will do.  I did too good a job sweeping it clean of leaves and other debris.   “Katniss”, I hear him call out.   “What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking my fish like you said I should.” Footsteps approach and I know by the shadow that falls across the room that he’s standing at the entrance.   “Look, this is ridiculous.  Come and cook the fish out here.  I’ve finished heating the beans.  The fire’s all yours. I’m sorry if it came across as judgmental. It’s just something I feel strongly about but I don’t expect you to feel the same.  You should enjoy your fish.”   Somewhat mollified, I rise from my crouched position by the hearth to follow him outside.  But then he ruins it.   “And, anyway, there shouldn’t be two fires when one will suffice.”   “You shouldn’t have made a new fire in the first place,” I return hotly. “Doesn’t it say somewhere in your camping books that you should always use an existing site rather than make a new one? And I’d already stacked it with wood.” “I didn’t want to smoke out . . . Katniss, just get out here before I come in and carry you out.  You’re being childish.”   “I’m being childish?” I screech indignantly.   He’s blocking my way, but I go to push past him.  “What about – “

My words are suddenly cut off by his lips on mine.  One arm encircles my body to pin my arms to my sides while the other cradles the back of my head.   I struggle briefly but it’s a token attempt and he knows it. The kiss goes on for a long time.  “Go cook your fish,” he whispers against my lips.   And then he pushes me gently outside. My fish is delicious.  I stuff the inside with wild herbs and pan fry it gently so that the skin crisps but doesn’t burn.  It would go well with roasted katniss roots and I decide to search for some tomorrow.  Marcus shouldn’t have a problem with katniss roots since they are plants.  That is, unless plants are protected in a national park too.  Perhaps I shouldn’t risk it.  But then I think of the kiss, so maybe I will.  My appetite has been whetted for something else besides food.

I wonder if I’m a bad person for having lustful thoughts about Marcus.  Only days before I was having them about Peeta. I would have given anything to have him sweep me into his arms, tell me that it was really me he had loved me all along and that Lace was a terrible mistake he’ll regret for the rest of his life, and then make passionate love to me.  And to be honest, I still would.  But that’s impossible and there’s no sense in thinking like that anymore. I’m twenty years old, a virgin, and the most I’ve ever done is kissing, and there’s been very little of that in recent years.  It dawns on me that I’m starved for physical affection.  And not just affection either.  I want sex.  Hot, unbridled, to-hell-with-the consequences sex.  Like the sex Celia had in that silly show “One Life to Live.”  Not the sandwich thing though.  Oh, who am I kidding, I almost feel reckless enough to try that too. I’ve nothing to lose.  Certainly not Peeta.  And I know Marcus wants it, only he’s too much of a gentleman to push me any further than where I put a halt to it the other night. I’m the one who’s going to have to make a move, then.   Only I don’t have the first clue how to go about it. While Marcus is occupied cleaning cooking utensils, I sneak inside the concrete house and push the sleeping mats together. I hope he gets the hint.  I hold my hand to my mouth to check my breath. I should brush my teeth.  The rest of me could do with freshening up too.  I take from my pack a toiletry bag and a large wash cloth that doubles as a towel and pad out to the lake.  Marcus has disappeared somewhere, maybe to find a tree a suitable distance away.  He doesn’t like to pee too close to a water source.   Dusk has fallen, but there’s still enough light to make out my surroundings.  I set my things by the lake’s edge and remove my shoes and socks.   I dip a toe in to test the water.  It’s freezing.  A sponge bath then.  I brush my teeth and then remove my shirt to wash under my arms.  But it’s hopelessly inadequate.   I want to be clean all over. Hurriedly, I take off all my clothes, grab the bar of soap (eco-friendly, of course), and wade out far enough until the water is past my thighs.   It’s the fastest bath I’ve ever had.  Soap, rinse, get out.  It’s not the cold so much that makes me rush, it’s the thought of Marcus coming across me naked.  Which is really stupid, because I hope we both are by night’s end.  But since there’s still no sight of him, I relax a little and take my time toweling myself dry.  I forgot to bring something to change into and since I don’t want to put my dirty clothes back on, I bundle everything together and dash towards the house. I’ll put something on when I get inside. “Enjoy your dip?” asks Marcus.   The logs in the fireplace have been lit and the small room flickers with light.   He raises his eyebrows as he takes in my appearance.  I’ve stopped dead at the entrance, clutching my bundle of boots, clothing and toiletry bag close to my body.  I raise it higher to cover my breasts and then hastily lower it again when I realise I’ve exposed my crotch.  What a disaster! “It was cold,” I stammer out.   “Come by the fire and warm up then.”  

He moves aside to make room for me.  It does look inviting.  He and the fire both, actually.  I hesitate as to what I should do about my unclothed state.  There’s nowhere to hide in this small, single-roomed house: no shadowy corner, no curtain or door.  And it’s not like I can move without flashing my backside too.  I hesitate for a few seconds, undecided, but then somewhat incongruously, a naked Johanna in an elevator comes to mind. What would Johanna do?   She’d likely go stand naked by the fire as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.   I recall that Marcus paid her no mind when she stripped in front of him.  Female nakedness apparently doesn’t faze him.  It’s no big deal then.  He’s already seen everything anyway.  And I do want to have sex with him.   What message does it send if I can’t wait to cover up?  So I decide to do something completely not myself.  I drop my things in a corner and go to stand beside him in front of the fire.  If it’s possible to blush all over, then I accomplish it.   To ease the tension, I blurt out the first thing I think of.   “I thought you said a fire in here would smoke us out.”   That’s great, Katniss.  Start an argument, why don’t you?   You want to seduce him, not fight with him. “I was wrong,” he says mildly.  “You know this place far better than I do.  I should have taken my cue from you.” “Yes, you should.  I mean should’ve.  About the fire . . . and other things.”  My eyes go to the sleeping mats, as close together as you can get them.  Suddenly I have the jitters.  It’s part excitement, part panic.  What if he doesn’t want to have sex with me after all?  I’m going to feel like the biggest fool.   “I won’t make that mistake again.”  He lays a hand against my back and trails it slowly downwards until it comes to rest on my hip.  “Your skin feels hot.  You shouldn’t stand so close.” I let out a nervous giggle.  “I’m the girl on fire, remember?  I love some heat.”  Shit, I can’t believe I said that.  It was so bad.   “Where else you do like to feel hot?”   The hand on my hip moves upwards, skimming my waist, and then over my ribs to cup my breast and lightly stroke the nipple.  “Here?”

“Yeah,” I say weakly.  

Desire puddles between my legs and I forget about being nervous.  I just want him to keep doing what he’s doing.  

He turns me towards him and both arms go around me.  He dips his head to trail open kisses along the side of my neck.  “Here?”  

“Mm.” I clutch at his back to help me stay upright.  My legs seem to have trouble supporting me.  

“And here?”  He takes each nipple in his mouth by turn, nibbling gently.  And then he kisses me, slowly and sensuously like we all the time in the world.

“Bedroom,” I whisper into his ear.  But before we take the half-dozen steps to our sleeping mats, there’s something I have to tell him.  

“I haven’t done this before,” I confess.  I don’t want him to think I do this kind of thing every day.

“I know.”

“How?”  I pull back, prepared to be affronted.  Was my seduction technique so bad?  As far as he knows, Peeta and I had been lovers.  We were going to have a baby!

He stops my mouth with another kiss.  “I just do.”

[everlarkficexchange]

Four Steps to Being Single

Written by: @wingletblackbird​

Betaed by: @butrfac14

Prompt 24: Canon Divergence. Through the years Katniss can’t stop paying attention to Peeta and she’s actually aware of it. When they settle as victors in district 12 or when the time for the victory tour comes (whichever you prefer) she can’t keep herself away from him and the line between friendship and something more becomes blurry until it disappears. [submitted by anonymous]  

Rating: General

Four Steps to Being Single

Step 1: Go For the Impossible

I couldn’t say when it started, noticing Peeta Mellark. Well, I mean, I know when I first noticed him, as in learned his name. It was after he gave me the bread and risked a beating from his mother to do it.

  “Who’s that boy?” I’d asked Madge casually one day. Although I’m not certain I succeeded at casual, since it is not in my nature to inquire about strangers, let alone ones from Town. I tried to cover by saying that I thought my father used to trade with his family.

  “Peeta Mellark,” Madge told me. “He’s my cousin’s best friend. He’s quite nice.”

  And so he was.

  I waited for the other shoe to fall, but it never did. He never in word, gesture, or deed made me feel small. Never, to my knowledge, boasted, bragged about, or mocked my situation to his friends. Never cornered me and asked for favours in return. That was why I first watched him. He sometimes watched me too, and I figured that must’ve been because he was checking up on me, the starving girl he saved. It wounded my pride a bit, and I clung to the resentment like a shield, watching to see if there were anyway to repay him. There really wasn’t, not in scope. Approaching him would probably make things worse if it got back to his mother anyway.

  So I watched him then not because I feared his price, but because nothing should hurt this kind boy. I watched him to see what the smallest acts of courage and kindness could wrought. My life saved, my family saved, and through my mother and sisters’ healing hands, who knows how many lives touched? All because of Peeta Mellark. No, I could never repay him. Even now, he gives me hope. When all I see is cruelty, and death, and hard-heartedness, there existed that one person who not only was kind, but resiliently so, even in the face of personal cost. Yes, I watched Peeta Mellark, but when did it go from hope, and gratitude, and fear to….attraction?

  I don’t know.

  I watched him hanging around with his friends and was glad he had them. Marvelled at his talent as an actor at school plays. Seethed when he was teased for his gifts, for his height. Watched as he excelled in wrestling after his growth spurt. The broadening of his shoulders, and the development of his muscle mass gave me comfort in the fact that he was more able to protect himself now.

  I watched him become so popular, you’d never guess he’d ever noticed a girl like me. But he never stopped being gentle or nice. I knew his schedule, observed in gym class that he always double-knotted his shoes, remembered his shifts at the bakery. I was just keeping tabs on him like I should given the debt owed. Right?

  And if I ever got upset when girls talked about him, it was only because they were vain, self-centered, and shallow. Peeta Mellark was owed more than that. That’s all. I was like his little protector, because I owed him. No other reason. I really never thought otherwise, never gave much thought to it at all. I can never peg when it started, only the moment of realisation.

  It was so simple.

  It was a cold winter’s day; I had come a bit too early to trade at the bakery, so Mr. Mellark had invited me to wait inside for a bit, and taken my coat before giving me my bread. Peeta was on the early rotation that morning, and he’d been the one to package it. He’d been the one to escort me out, and he’d been the one who had courteously and gallantly gotten my father’s coat. He hadn’t just helped me slip it on either. (And I was intimately aware of every movement as his arms went around me, and his fingers brushed my shoulder, just so.) Oh, no. That’s not good enough for Peeta Mellark. Peeta took the time to help me button it up, then to roll up the cuffs on the sleeves that were far too long for my bony arms.

  “It’s fine. I can do it myself.” I’d bit out, never liking to feel vulnerable, being the center of attention, and Peeta made me feel that way, which is why in spite of myself my tone came out harsher then I’d have liked, especially given who I was talking to.

  “It’s alright. I don’t mind.” He’d smiled at me, and it was shy, hesitant, gentle, hopeful, sincere and so blue. My body thrummed like I’d unwittingly placed my hand on the electrified fence. I opened my mouth to make a quick retort about personal space, but my mouth felt dry. I couldn’t focus it, so I bolted out like a crazy person. I was never looking him in the eye again, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. Now that I was aware of it, I was aware of it.

  Still, I reasoned, all told, if I must endure this feeling, like all creatures of the wild. Better instead to pine for the boy I can never have, because that way there’s no need for awkward refusals and explanations. No chance of having to deal with it all. I am never getting married, or having kids. As for Peeta Mellark, the popular, golden boy, wrestling champion noticing me? He may as well fall in love with the mud on his boots. Really, I was absolutely safe.

  Step 2: Enforce Boundaries

“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.”

  “Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.

  “Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what’s going to be left when we get home?”

  I look up, but I don’t really know what to say. The depth of feeling I felt when he almost died, every time he almost died, when they separated us, it’s so deep I’m not sure I can see the bottom. It’s like being afraid of heights. I never dreamed he might feel for me what I did for him. Or rather, I dreamed it upon a rare occasion, but never presumed it would ever, ever be reality. Who could have seen this coming? And was it real? My caring for him might have been, but most every way I acted was for the cameras, and now that they’re gone…

  I can’t have kids. I can’t go through that. How much is going to be left when we go home? I don’t know. He can never be more than my friend. He’d move on though. Probably. There are loads of women who’d want Peeta Mellark, victor, many more than would have wanted him before. I would just get in the way.

  I look down at the flowers in my hand. The wild onions which remind me of my life before the Reaping, of Gale. He’d hate me being with any Townie. He barely tolerates Madge, and while I’m not inclined to let Gale dictate my friendships, I’m not in the mood to deal with the fallout either. I wish things would go back to the way they were before, simpler, without the blood of children on my hands, before Peeta and I had ever shared a conversation, when it was safer. And maybe that would be better for him too, a clean break. I don’t know how to say this the right way without crushing him. I’m not good with words at the best of times. Peeta is fidgeting and huffing and clearly expecting an answer.

  “I don’t know. I–we’ll be neighbours. We’ll see each other. I don’t–”

  “It’s fine.” He cuts in abruptly raising his palm towards me in a gesture to stop. “It’s fine. I should’ve seen this coming. It’s fine. I’ll just…stay away. Won’t mess things up for you.”

  “Peeta, wait!” I call out, but he’s marching off to the train, his shoulders are so tense they remind me of rocks. I drop the flowers to the ground and collapse. Mid-sob I realise I don’t want to be caught crying out here, so I head straight to my room and lock it where I lie on the bed. I cry until I sleep. You’re not supposed to feel loss for people who are alive.

  Peeta and I don’t talk again for weeks.

  I miss him. I try to go through the motions of being who I used to be. The girl who hunts in the woods with her friend, Gale. It doesn’t work though, because that Katniss doesn’t know what it feels like to be in the games, to be the prey, to be on the receiving end of Peeta Mellark’s affection. Even when I’m not having nightmares, I dream of him. I hunt. I come home. I see his house, and I worry. I yearn, and it scares me so much I rush back inside and try not to think about it.

  As time goes by, I know this isn’t feasible. There’s the Victory Tour, and mentoring, and Peeta and I will always be neighbours. His words, I’ll stay away, echo through my ears, and I know I have to find the courage to talk to him, because I don’t want that. I never wanted that. I hadn’t told him that. We’re going to have to work together anyway, get along. So I storm across to his front door, and in my determination knock far more harshly than I likely should. I’m scared I’ll lose my nerve.

  “Katniss?” I have clearly woken him up. He’s been sleeping even though it’s almost noon.

  “Did I wake you?” It’s a stupid question given he’s bleary-eyed, and his hair is sticking up every angle, and his shirt is all rumpled, but it’s supposed to be polite, isn’t it? And I’m no good at this stuff.

  “Um, yeah.” His voice sounds hoarse from sleep and he blinks a few times to orient himself. “Why don’t you come in?”

  I nod, and brace myself to enter, preparing for what, I’m not even sure. His house is much like ours, but his colour scheme is different. It’s clear he hasn’t done much with the place. Hasn’t tried to personalise it. He lives here, but it doesn’t look like he considers it home.

  “Is there anything, you’d like to drink? Eat?”

  “No, it’s fine. I just wanted to talk.”

  He sighs, and looks resigned to misery. Frankly I feel a touch annoyed at his melodrama, but I follow him into the living room and sit on the sofa across from him.

  There is an awkward silence. If I ever had a biography written about me, it ought to be called just that. Unless I’m in the woods. Silence is a language in the woods, and I’m a native speaker. Peeta isn’t making it easy either.  He’s leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, watching me intently. I feel pinned. Clearly I am required to start this conversation.

  “I don’t want you to think I want you to stay away from me.” He looks nonplussed. So I clarify, as I grip and ungrip my hands in lieu of biting my nails. I am stiff as a board on this stupid sofa. “You said that at the train stop, that you’d stay away. I don’t want that.”

  “You don’t?” He asks tentatively and his head rises just slightly. I can see hope glow in his eyes, but it’s so fragile a baby’s breath could puff it out.

  “No. I mean, we have to work together, and I–”

  He huffs, interrupting me, and leans back against the sofa, shaking his head. He looks put out.

  “Look, Katniss, if this is about the Tour, or the Games, or the cameras. I won’t let you down, but I’m not…just…” He waves his hands erratically in frustration. “Don’t lie. Don’t say you want me around when you don’t.”

“I’m not!” I shout. I am incensed he would think that of me, and I’ve had more than enough of his self-pity. “I never said that. Why would you think that? Look, I’m not getting married, okay? I’m not having kids. It’s nothing to do with you.” I cross my arms and my legs petulantly. I am mad. He should know it. Idiot. “I decided that years ago, so you can stop acting like a kicked puppy, because it’s really getting annoying.” My tirade slows as I see poor, Peeta’s jaw hanging open. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but I can only be your neighbour, okay? I’m pretty sure that’s what I said in the first place. It’s nothing personal.”   

  Peeta nods slowly, like he’s absorbing it all. Finally, he apologises.

  “I’m sorry. I…I just thought you were doing what you had to do, and I’m grateful you were looking out for me too, but I didn’t think that meant you wanted to be around me. Why would you? And I thought Gale might be upset. And–”

  “He is. He doesn’t like people from Town, but it’s not like that anyway. I told you. No marriage. No kids. Gale knows how I feel.” I shrug. “Now you do too.” I look away, because I can’t make eye contact with him, and I don’t know what to say. I almost feel like I’m lying. Fortunately, Peeta has never been troubled by such things.

  “Well,” he says wryly after he collects his thoughts, “what’s your favourite colour?”

  We grin.

  Step 3: Maintain Boundaries

Having Peeta’s friendship makes things easier, so much easier. I don’t have to hide from him, or explain things. Mom and Prim understand the flashbacks, and the nightmares, but I don’t want to talk to them. Prim is so young, and with Mom…it’s just hard. I don’t want to add to her burdens. Gale would rather pretend nothing happened, yet somehow still seethes. Peeta though, he was there. He knows me. He goes through it with me. When I jump at loud noises, he quips a one-liner with an empathetic look in his eyes. I am still Katniss, just extra jumpy. He has an entirely different approach to handling nightmares though. He paints. I don’t know how he can stand it. I try to avoid that part of my life entirely the way you jerk your hand off of a hot oven. Peeta feels he has to remember it though.

  “It helps to realise that it’s just a nightmare,” he explains. “When I paint it. I have control over it, distance.”

  “But you still have nightmares.”

  “Yes, but it happened. I don’t know if I want to forget what happened there.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye as we examine his work. “Should Rue be forgotten?”

  Tears fill my eyes, and I want to glare at him, but I can’t. I let him wrap his arms around me, and I press my face against his warm, strong chest, and the tears flow. I do nothing to stop his affection. He rests his cheek against the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just want to find some meaning in it.

  “There isn’t. One man’s power trip. Capitol cruelty.” It’s risky saying it, but I don’t care.

  “I know, but…I survived, and I can’t get past that I am alive, because so many aren’t. Good people. Children like Rue. I need to…acknowledge that. Live somehow in a way that doesn’t dishonour that.” He’s choking up now too, and I hug him tighter. We stay like that for a very long time, until our arms hurt, and it’s hard to stand. Then we sit, and stay wrapped up for even longer. I feel safe.

  It doesn’t entirely stop the nightmares, but sharing with Peeta does decrease their severity and frequency. At least when I wake up, it can be easier. I am up every morning to check on the snare line for Gale, and when I return, I help Peeta with his bread routes. Peeta bakes where I hunt. He takes cat naps while the dough is rising, or the bread is in the oven. True to his desire to make his survival mean something, he delivers the bread to the Community Home, and leaves other loaves in the trash bins in Town where he knows starving Seam children will find him. When he first brought me with him I wanted to lean up and whisper in his ear that I thought he was amazing, that I desired him too. But I don’t. I can’t.

  Instead I tell him he has inspired me. It’s true. I decide my so-called talent will be gardening and botany. It’s just a cover so I can plant berry bushes, and fruit trees, and vegetables inside the fence. Maybe, it’s not much, but I know what a difference even two loaves of bread can make between life and death. I think of Rue in the plants, how she wanted me to win. Peeta’s right. This makes me feel like, somewhere, she’s smiling.

  That’s the only downside to being with Peeta really. He does something seemingly small, and I almost combust. It’s the yearning, the want to run my fingers through his hair, to hold his hands, to caress his jaw, to sit on his lap, to kiss him until I can’t feel my lips. I never do, and it takes more discipline than I expect, since I know he would welcome my attentions. I guess I am the Girl on Fire. I spend a lot of time gazing at him when I know he isn’t looking. When he’s painting is an excellent time. Peeta gets so focused, still, hinting at entire worlds locked away inside him. His hands are gentle, but precise, as he places each stroke of the brush. I pretend to read in the corner, but more often than not, I just watch him, bask in him, the knowledge he is alive, safe, for now.

  Sometimes I fall asleep in that corner, and Peeta will pick me up, carry me to bed, and carefully tuck me in. One time, I groggily grasp his hand and ask him to stay. So he does. He crawls into the bed alongside me and I nuzzle into his chest as he wraps his arms around me and I drift off dreaming of warmth and sunshine.

  It starts a pattern. I join Peeta in his morning catnaps, and I like it so much, I take to dragging blankets down and creating a nest in front of the fireplace during mid-afternoon, when everyone, insomniac or otherwise, gets sleepy. Maybe it’s just an excuse, but I’ll make any I can to spend more time in Peeta’s arms. Sometimes, more often than not, if I wake before him, I run my fingers through his curls, or down his cheek. I kiss his forehead, and eyes, and nose, and cheeks, and sometimes even his lips. He sleeps like a log so he never notices. I doubt he’d mind though, so I keep doing it, because when affection bubbles up inside me, this is the best way I can think of to handle it. That, and fussing over him, or bringing him meat. I’m not good with words, so I just do stuff and hope people understand. Prim used to tease I was like Buttercup bringing in trophies of dead mice for his loved ones. I resent the comparison, probably because it’s accurate. Peeta and I call each other every night, especially when the nightmares are bad. Often I slip over just to be sure he’s still breathing.

  We never have to worry about anyone interrupting us. Sometimes Peeta visits his family in Town. Even more rarely, his father, and occasionally one of his brothers will drop by. They aren’t a close family. Peeta confesses his mother pitched a fit at the idea of living so close to the Everdeens, then said it was too far from the bakery, and didn’t look good, or whatever. The truth is she’s a witch. When Peeta says it’s just as well, they never got on anyway, the woebegone look in his eyes makes me wrap my arms around him, and I do kiss him on the cheek. I rest my head on his shoulder. It’s not right the way they treat him. I don’t understand it. I never even wanted to love anyone, and I couldn’t help myself. Worse still, I feel bad for being so hard on him when he stopped talking to me for awhile, because I can understand now why he leapt to all the wrong conclusions. If your family rejects you, I suppose you come to expect it. It hurts my heart. I want to wrap him up in cotton wool and place him on a really high shelf where nothing will ever wound him again. I feel like a dragoness who hisses and spits at anyone who would dare try to steal her gold hidden deep in a cave, except it is not gold I guard, but my golden boy, the sunshine boy, the boy with the bread. Hiss. My sweet boy. I really am very feral.

  “We can be your family.” I whisper into his ear one day as we are lying together, and it is worth every bit of anxiety I feel to see the lazy grin spread across his face.

  “I’d like that.”

  Mom and Prim are healers at heart. They take Peeta in like he’s a wounded puppy.

  It’s ironically the best summer of my life. I don’t worry about food, or warmth, or winter. I go on picnics. I swim in the lake. I teach Peeta to swim, (which is playing with that fire, but I regret nothing.) I stargaze. I curl up like a cat, and stretch when I get up. The only struggle is Gale. I wish it wasn’t so, because he has been my support for years, but I find I have to hide most of my life from him. He resents me living in Victor’s Village, I think. He despises hearing about Peeta. He won’t talk about the mines, which I don’t suppose I can blame him for, but that only leaves the woods and his family to talk about. Since Hazelle keeps me informed about that, it’s really just the woods. It wouldn’t be an issue, the woods have always been ours, except his bitterness spills out over sometimes. His eyes flash, and his jaw tenses. The air feels sharp and dangerous. I can’t abandon him though, and I cannot even fathom how awful it must feel to be so trapped. I garner the impression he feels cheated out of something. I do what I can to lift his spirits, have him enjoy his one day above ground. We find our new routine, But the last Sunday before the train comes he presses a kiss on me.

  “I had to do that. Just once.” He says before storming away. I don’t know what to make of it. I stand stupefied for awhile, never having really considered that it could be a future with me he feels so cheated of. It would never have happened anyway. I don’t dare tell him that.

  To add insult to injury, I am forced to talk with President Snow.

  Step Four: Throw Your Hands up in Despair

“Was that really the only time you kissed Gale?”

  My eyes widen that he’s even asking me. “Yes!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He’s quick to reassure me which hurts in so many other ways. “I just…you said he knew how you felt about kids, marriage, so…”

  “He was just being an ass.” I reassure him and rub my hand across his shoulders. We are both sitting on his bed after the travesty that was our encounter with District Eleven. I wrap my arms around him from behind and rest my cheek on his shoulder.

  “Thanks for standing in front of that Peacekeeper. It was really brave.” I can feel the tension drain out of him, and can practically hear his proud smirk. I swear. Men. But if it makes him feel better I don’t complain. Instead, I turn his head to face me and kiss him softly on the lips.

  “To make you even,” I explain with an uncharacteristic wink, and I am gratified to hear Peeta laugh. We go to sleep not long after that. There’s no question that he stays with me.

  It really is remarkable how bad I am at convincing anyone that I am in love with Peeta, especially given that it’s true. I suppose it’s the nature of the camera. It can’t show the little things I do. And I’m not prone to grand gestures in front of audiences. I can’t make it look real. I’m supposed to speak my love, but if I did, it would probably come out all wrong with smatterings of “but Dandelions, and Spring, and sunshine, don’t you see?” But that’s for me not them, and I cannot bring myself to part with it. It makes me too vulnerable to share the story about the bread either. It occurs to me Peeta has a courage, a strength I don’t. He told the truth to Caesar in our Tribute interviews, and he turned his vulnerability into a honed weapon. I am a survivor in my own fashion, but I don’t know how to do that.  

  Kissing Peeta and pretending I don’t want more is a chore too, and only complicates an already sticky matter. Well, when it’s in front of the cameras, I generally don’t want more, but when we sneak off to get caught on them, it’s another matter. It’s hard not to get too into it, and I wonder how in the world I’m supposed to do this for the rest of my life, assuming Snow doesn’t kill us all? How am I supposed to kiss Peeta on camera, and then go home, and keep my hands to myself? Being around Peeta is nothing short of deadly.

  So when we come to the Capitol, reasonably sure we’ve failed, I throw it out-

  “We could get married.”

  Peeta agrees and then leaves as quickly as he can. I make to follow, but Haymitch says I ought to leave him alone. He gives me a stare that proves he thinks I am some kind of surly, heartless creature. Maybe he has a point, because if Peeta wants this to be real…well it’s not like I hate him, but I’ve never clued him in. So I glare back at Haymitch, and I do follow him, because Peeta suffers enough insecurity without him thinking he’s going to marry me and I don’t want him. It’s just that I don’t want to be hurt; I don’t want my kids to hurt.

  Peeta surprises me. He goes into the bathroom when I arrive and turns on all the faucets.

  “I want to talk to you about something.” He speaks as quietly as he can. I know he must be trying to avoid having our conversation overheard, so I join him as he sits down by the bathtub where the shower is rushing. “I know you said you didn’t want marriage and kids, because of the Reaping…but, I guess that’s unavoidable now. So…I just…” He trails off, and looks uncertain. It’s rare Peeta can’t express himself, so I gather this is something that cuts very deep to his heart. I don’t dare interrupt him. “My parents’ marriage was arranged. Lots of marriages in Town are, and they hate each other. I always swore, I’d rather go to the Seam then live my parent’s life–not that I think you’re like my mother!–” he hastens to clarify when he sees the look on my face, “but a loveless marriage by two people who feel they have to do it, and end up resenting each other, and kids who are born for necessity and not love. And…” He shakes his head. A grimace is etched on his face. “We have to get married. There’s no avoiding that, and if they make us have kids, which they eventually will… then…they don’t have to be mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that this doesn’t have to be a real marriage. If it’s forced, it can’t count. Like, if you fall in love with someone else, you can have his kids. I get you never planned on it, but you should at least get a choice in the who. We can pretend they’re mine for the cameras. But…behind the scenes…”

  “Peeta, that’s insanity.”

  “I’m just saying,” he stresses, raising his voice slightly, and he lifts his hand up and down in emphasis like he’d be slapping a table if we weren’t sitting on cold tile, “it’s a possibility. If you don’t want it to be me then…just say so. You won’t be doing me any favours pretending. I have enough of that in my life. Can you love me, Katniss? Do you?” His voice cracks a little.

  “Peeta–” He doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise. He’s lost in his own fears.

  “But then there’s the fact that it’s practically a guarantee our kids will get Reaped. Heck,” he laughs bitterly, “maybe more than one. I dunno, Katniss, maybe I should just right the imbalance now.” He looks somberly at me. His blues eyes are as dark as I’ve ever seen them. “There’s only meant to be one victor.”

  “No!” I shout and then drop my voice when I remember we’re supposed to be being discreet. “No! Peeta, if I was ever okay with that, I would have let you die in the arena,” I hiss. “How could you even suggest it?” I choke as I feel sobs rise up in my throat. “You don’t even know for sure, they’ll Reap them! And, I mean, it’ll be someone’s kid…and I just…” I’m not even making sense, Peeta’s words have catapulted me down a dark tunnel where little girls are abandoned when their father’s die. I cling to him and shake. Peeta looks guilty, as he wraps me up in his arms.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Then don’t ever, ever suggest that again! Don’t even consider it.” My crying is ugly, and I wipe my nose into his shirt and don’t even care.

  “Alright, I won’t, but you know as well as I do, our kids will have an increased risk of being Reaped. It’s basically guaranteed. I can’t just sit idly by while that happens. What if they Reap all our kids? I just…I know we have to try and subdue the districts or Snow will kill us all, but afterwards, I think we need to try something. We’ll have at least twelve years after our first child is born to  prepare them, but I’d far rather prefer there be no Games at all. We’ll be coming to the Capitol every year now, maybe we can learn more about their weaknesses, scout out the other victors for sentiment in their districts. I don’t know. I just can’t take this lying down Katniss. I can’t. I won’t be someone who does nothing at all when someone tries to hurt their child. I can’t.”

  I pull out of his arms so I can see his face. I run a soothing hand across his forehead where his hair waves; it helps to ground me as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him so desperate which is really saying a lot. I can understand why this issue devastates him. It devastates me too, albeit from a different childhood trauma. I curl into him again. Any direction I go scares me, but I’d rather hold onto him in the storm. I can’t hold this from him when he so needs to hear it.

  “I agree, but Peeta, it was always you. I decided ages ago I couldn’t marry if only because of the Games, although I’m scared of losing you too. It was always you, okay?”

  “What?” He seems so genuinely confused I don’t know whether to slap him or his mother.

  “I mean, that I knew who you were when you were Reaped, and I’d been watching you for ages too. I mean, marriage wouldn’t be my first choice, but I do….I do love you.” I twist my head up to see him better. There is dawning comprehension on his face as his eyes widen and his cheeks lift.

  “You mean that?”

  “Yes, obviously.” I don’t like that he is dragging this out, so I sit up to kiss him.

  He gets the picture.

[alexiss-fic-archive]

The magic she loves the most

Summary: A monster shows up near Connie’s home.

Notes: Definitely not my best work, but i kinda need the show to fuel my inspiration and after 100+ days im starting to run ow on inspiration. ANYWAY, I needed to pull something out before winter and here it is.

Also available at the Ao3!

Ever since Connie and her parents moved into Delmarva, She noticed that the place had some sort of magic feeling. And she didn't thought so because of the occasional monster attack and the general activities of the Crystal Gems in the area.

She thought that Delmarva was magic in and of itself. The air was fresh, the nights were starry, the people cared for each other and the ocean breeze could be felt from a few miles inland.

This natural magic was often accentuated by the passage of time, which brought something unique to the land as the seasons pass by.

The dreamlike Winter made the air chilly and created beautiful landscapes as snow fell gently during the night. The lively Spring brought the perfume of flowers and a particular day when small flowers descended from the highest hill of the area, showering the suburban area Connie lived in pink. The warm Summer made the heat stronger, and caused the Ocean breeze to be carried further inland. It's arrival also was followed by vacations Connie would spend alongside Steven.

Finally Autumn, the season She was currently in, was a transitory period between the fun of summer and the comfy cold of winter.

The deciduous trees all around the area distorted the everyday weaker Sunlight into a yellowish reflection that gave an ambience of comfort to all the inhabitants of the suburbs. And the sight of their falling leaves as the wind gently blew through them was something relaxing.

That relaxation however was easily shattered by the sound of Steel clashing, as an insectoid Corrupted gem resembling a living yellow pages but green and made out of metal appeared nearby Connie's neighborhood.

It was about the same size as a large car, and was as fast as its slender frame suggested. It's vivid green body changed as it pleased, folding its shiny sheets into dangerously sharp appendages which tried to shred Connie and Steven in tiny Pieces. Its mantis-like visage had a few sets of compound eyes, while its shark-like maw, filled with razor sharp teeth, let out screeches so horrifying that seemed to bend the wind into its will..

Steven and Connie, The two Crystal Gems that weren’t at the other side of the world, were amazingly skilled and managed to drive the beast into a small forest near her neighborhood as Doug and Priyanka calmed down the other residents without the beast causing any damage.

Then, when they were far enough from the suburb to avoid any collateral damage, the two children engaged the creature in combat.

“This isn't what I had in mind when you invited me to hang out.” Steven said as he blocked a scythe-like claw with his shield.

“What did you had in mind?” Connie asked him before trying to deflect the spear-like tendrils that sprouted from the folds on the creatures back.

“I dunno…” He mused as the creature's attacks waned a bit. “Maybe drink some tea, Watch a Romantic comedy, play on the fallen leaves.”

“That sounds great Steven.” Connie said as the dodged a kick from the beast's absurdly sharp legs. “But I kinda want to watch the new adaptation of Dogcopter instead.”

“It’s out already?” He asked her before throwing his shield into the creature's head, which did nothing to it aside from creating a loud, metallic noise.

“Yup. It premiered last night.” She said as she tried to slash at the Creature's side. It remained unflinching as the sharp edge of Rose's sword bounced off the thin material. “Maybe we can watch it later if we figure out how to beat this thing.”

“Awesome!” He said before he created another shield to deflect a set of spears. “But how are we going to do so? It looks like paper but it is as hard as my shield.

“Hmm…” Connie mused as she tried to regroup with Steven, dodging many attacks from the monster in the process. “I think it's like an insect. It has very tough armor outside to protect his squishy inside.”

As Connie reached the boy the creature released an enraged screech, giving Steven enough reaction time to create a bubble just in time to block a powerful claw swipe that sent them bouncing across the woods, tearing their way through the few slender trees before crashing on a large tree trunk.

“Ow…” Steven said after the bubble hit the ground. “You okay?”

“Yeah. But we won't be okay if we let the fight drag on.” She said, pointing at a large crack in the side of the barrier where the beast had attacked.

“Maybe we could throw something into its mouth and hurt him from within.” Steven said as he tried to repair the light barrier.

With that, Connie's face lightened up as an Idea Struck her.

“What if you throw me there?” Connie said Confidently.

“WHAT?!” Steven said surprised. “No! That's too dangerous!”

“If we Don't stop it it might destroy my neighborhood, Steven.” She tried to reason with him. “And it could even go after everyone else.”

“But you could get hurt!” He said, worried about her safety.

“I’ll be fine, Steven. Trust me.” She said, her courageous eyes staring at Steven's.

“Okay.” He conceded. Saving his worry for later. “How do we do it?”

“If we manage to open its mouth we could come up with something.” Connie mused. “I mean, It's obvious that he must use it for more stuff than screeching.”

“Maybe he has a ranged attack?” Steven said.

“You think so?” The girl said.

“Yeah. The air gets all weird and heavy whenever it screeches.” Steven explained. “Maybe he shoots pressurised wind?”

“Did Pearl taught you that?” She asked.

“Not exactly…” The blushing boy said embarrassed. “I saw a guy doing that in the ninja anime we saw the other day.”

His comment pulled out a small giggle from Connie.

“I would lie If I said I didn't thought that as well.” She smiled at him.

Steven was about to say something as well, but was interrupted by the beast's earsplitting screech getting closer to them, followed by a rather violent gust of wind .

Upon noticing the small gale conjured by the monster, Connie said: “Well, I guess that's where the mangaka got his inspiration from.”

The two laughed a bit at the joke before Steven extended his hand towards her.

“Ready to get thrown into a monster's mouth?” He said smugly.

“Thought you might never ask.” She responded similarly before grabbing his hand. Afterwards, Steven wrapped Connie in his arms and leaped upwards, ascending gracefully into the canopy of the tree they crashed into.

Once they got a vantage point, they could see the way the withering treetops seemed to create a small sea of orange and gold, expanding all the way into the meadows where Peridot and Lapis’ barn once was.

However, despite Connie's desire to stay there and watch the sunset in a few hours next to Steven, they had work to do and instead, focused her attention into finding the creature, whose large body shaked the base of the trees as it moved..

“There it is!” Steven said as he catched a green dash in the ocean of orange. “Its coming towards us.”

A moment later, the beast reached a small clearing in the forest, where both of them saw each other in detail. It sprinted towards the kids in a frenzied manner, deciding to paint the nearby trees red with their insides.

Fortunately for them they were at a height where it couldn't reach them, the creature couldn't climb the tree, and after Steven shielded it from its sheets by dropping several constructs near the trunk to defend it and bait it to use its mouth.

At some point, the monster got exasperated and decided to end it all right there. It walked away a few meters before opening its mouth as wide as it could, forcing an overwhelming quantity of air inside that started to bloat its figure like a bloodthirsty tick finishing its meal.

“There it is!” Connie said as she readied her sword to fight. “Now, Steven!”

“On it!” He said as he lifted her effortlessly. “Please stay safe, my strawberry.”

“Don’t worry, biscuit.” Connie declared, ignoring the fact that both of them just called each other by their pet names. “I’ve got this.”

And so, Steven launched his best friend into the vacuum created by the creature's attack.

As she was pulled into the wind vortex, Connie pointed her sword in front of her, in an attempt to impale the monster's vitals with the pull and Steven's strength as her only propulsion.

Connie let out a battle cry as she entered the creatures maw, piercing the back of its throat's soft tissue, inches above the square-shaped gemstone that was the core of the creature.

With another grunt, Connie forced the edge of her sword to slide across the soft flesh, causing its green blood to pour over Connie until its body finally faltered and evaporated in an iridescent puff of green smoke, which disappeared in a flash as the stored air within the monster bursted violently like a balloon, creating a wind so strong that it managed to tear the dying leaves from the entire forest in one go.

Seconds later, a rain of brown, orange and dust fell down to the ground all at once, covering the young girl up to her knees in dead leaves.

“You okay Connie!?” Steven asked as he dangled from a branch of the tree she was on moments ago. “Did you got hurt?”

“I’m fine!” She notified him before sheathing her blade. “I have the monster's gem here!”

“Cool! I’ll be there in a sec!” He said as he flung himself off the branch towards her, using his slow descent to break his fall. The boy landed next to Connie, creating a crackling noise as he stepped on the dry leaves.

“Here.” She handed the gem over to Steven, who proceeded to bubble it and warp it into the temple.

He then gave Connie a small once-over to see if she really wasn't injured.

“So…” Connie said after she was deemed unscathed. “What do you want to do now?”

“Hm…” Steven said. “We should go back and report to your parents.” He told her. “They are probably worried about us.”

“Do you want to see Dogcopter along with me then?” She asked him.

“I wouldn't watch it otherwise.” He said smiling as the pair of children made their way back into her house.

★★★★★

In many cases, watching a new show with your best friend as you drink tea under a blanket to shield yourselves from the cold wind of autumn is something considered as ‘friendship goals’.

In some others, helping clean the mess you did along said best friend after defeating a hideous creature is a similar experience.

It turns out that after the monster popped up like a balloon, the dead leaves from the trees the wind had ripped off flew into the surrounding areas. This of course included Connie’s neighborhood, which seemed to be buried under thirty centimeters of yellow and brown.

However, this didn’t bothered Connie at all.

The point of Steven’s visit was to spend a good time after all, and she already knew that steven was one of the few persons on earth who could turn a boring task into a fun game.

And true to his nature, he made the mundane task of raking the leaves into a contest to see who could make the biggest mound of leaves, only to jump straight into them regardless. Making figures on the leaves and making a tiny amethyst out of them.

This made Connie remember that Steven was also magical. Not only magical in the literal sense, but magical in the same way the land she lived in was. His natural optimism and kindness were something that never failed to shine, even through the most dire of circumstances.

And that magic was the one she loved the most.

[gabzep]

A Marriage That Was Never Meant To Be (5)

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

7 YEARS AGO

I folded a piece of paper into a triangle.  I place one tip on the table with my finger.  I scan the room real quick for the teacher; ok her back is to the class.  One, two, three and flick. Score!  Direct hit to the back of Peetas’ head, I stifle a giggle as I watch him flinch.

We use to sit together all the time but the teachers started to separate us for disrupting the class.  Mostly me, not that my grades were ever effected, I ace everything without even trying.  Class is so boring.  My mom’s medical books are more interesting then what they teach us here.

Peeta sits in the row next to mine two seats up.  I watch as he unfolds the paper reads the note, writes something on it and folds it back up.  Instead of throwing it back to me he passes it down the row.  Hilda hands it to me under the desk.  I unfold it to see his answer.

‘R U sure it’s K if I come over 2moro morning?  I won’t B cutting in2 UR play time w/UR BFF Delly?’  KE

‘OMG of course it’s K & how many times do I have 2 tell U she’s not my BFF U R!’ PM

I smile smugly at his reply.  It’s not that I’m jealous of Delly.  Well, ok maybe a little but he was my friend first.  When I met Peeta he didn’t have any friends.  His whole family’s life had changed when he was born ‘abnormal’.  The weekend he and Mr. Mellark came over so Peeta could be measured for his firstleg, Mr. Mellark had told us that when Peeta was born all their friends and some family started to distance themselves from them.  No longer inviting them to any of their social gatherings nor coming over to any of theirs.  So they just stopped socializing with most people from town.

Peeta said that once he realized they were being shunned because of him he felt guilty and would rather hide from everyone hoping they would forget he existed.  My dad told him there was nothing wrong with him, that it was the nonsense the capital was spewing and the people who bought into it that were the problem.  Mr. Mellark said he was so nervous for Peeta when he finally started school, thinking he might be bullied, how happy he had been to see Peeta had make some friends.

The day Delly became our friend, was also the first time I went over to Peeta’s house for a play date.  My dad had dropped me off at his house when we went into town to trade.  It was also the first time I met Mrs. Mellark.

She looked down her nose at me, turned to Mr. Mellark and said “Seeing as he’s going to have to live in the Seam one day, he might as well make friends with them now.”  She then shoved colored chalks into our hands and ushered us out the front of the bakery saying “Make as much noise as you want” she then went back inside with a smirk on her face.

Peeta had already mastered the use of his new leg and you almost couldn’t tell he was ‘abnormal’.  We ran around playing tag for awhile, and then sat down in the front of the bakery with our chalks to draw on the floor.  I saw Delly staring at us from across the way and could tell she wanted to play too.  I motioned for her to join us and as she was walking over her mom came out, grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back into the shoe shop.  Delly dropped to the floor and threw an epic tantrum right in the middle of the square.

“Why can’t I play with Peeta?” legs flailing, “I’ve always wanted to play with him but you never let me” fist pounding, “how come it’s ok for Katniss but not me, it’s not fair” and so on and so on.  It seemed to go on forever.  Delly’s dad finally came out of the shop and told Mrs. Cartwright to leave her alone.  That was it; Peeta had a second best friend.

Right as I was about to flick another paper at him the bell for lunch rings.  I grab my lunch bag and go over to Peeta.

“So what do you have planned for us tomorrow that I need to miss hunting with my dad?” I ask.

“It’s a surprise” he tells me.  I scowl at him, I hate surprises and he knows it.  He just grins at me.  “Come on Katniss you’ll love it, I promise.”

We sit down at our usual table; Madge and Delly are already there.  Mrs. Undersee and my mom are best friends so Madge and I grown up together.  We start to unpack our lunch.

“You girls know what he has planned for us tomorrow?” I ask them.  They shake their heads.  Peeta lays out slices of bread.

“I was going to ask you the same thing” said Madge “We thought you might know”.  I place pieces of sliced turkey meat and goat cheese on the bread.

“Nope, he’s being secretive” I say with a frown.  As he brings out the cookies and hands one to each of us.  I look at mine and it’s decorated with a Katniss flower.  “Wow Peeta, you’re getting really good at this” I tell him.  He beams at me.  I can’t help but smile back; he has such a passion for decorating.

Halfway through our lunch hour the sirens go off.  That can only mean one thing a mine accident.  My heart sank as the realization hits me dad.

“I have to get Prim” I yell.  I run to her class, Peeta right behind me.  She’s sitting at her desk, looking so tiny and pale, just waiting for me to get her as per our moms’ instructions if the sirens were to ever go off.  She jumps up, grabs my hand and the three of us run off to the entrance of the mines.

Our mom and the rest of our family from the apothecary are gathered around the district doctor as he coordinates the triage area.  Prim, my cousin Jasmine and I are assigned the minor injuries area.  My aunt Gina, my uncle Reed and my cousin Sage are assigned the urgent care area and my mom and grandparents get the priority miners section.  Peeta, Gale and several other volunteers work among us, handing out supplies as we call out what we need.

After what feels like hours my dad and Mr. Hawthorne are brought into the urgent section.  My mom trades places with my uncle so she can tend to them herself.  I let out a sigh of relief and go back to stitching Mr. Jones’s leg.

“There you go Mr. Jones, keep it bandaged and dry for 24 hours, after that wash it twice daily with soap and water and apply some ointment to help minimize infection” I hands him a bag of extra bandages and a clay pot of ointment. “Keep an eye out for swelling, redness, pus or bleeding which may mean it’s infected.”  He nods his thanks and his wife and kids come over to help him home.

I see Gale sitting by his father’s side as they work on him.  I wish I could be there too but I’m needed here and I don’t want to be in the way.  After a few minutes Mrs Hawthorne has to send Gale home with Rory and Vick.  He doesn’t want to but Vick is to upset and he won’t calm down.  I catch a glimpse of Peeta and notice he’s limping as he moves around gathering more bandages and supplies to take to my mom.

“Peeta” I call out to him “Come here when you’re done.”  He hands my mom the supplies and heads over to my area.  He keeps wincing as he puts pressure on his leg.  I feel tears stinging my eyes.  I can tell he’s trying so hard to hide the pain as he walks towards me.  He pulls me into his arms when he reaches me and takes me completely by surprise with a quick kiss on the lips, a kiss to comfort.  I blink away the tears.  This is the first time he’s ever initiated a kiss.  He usually tries to fight me off whenever I try kissing him.  Huh I have noticed that for the pass month now he hasn’t been trying that hard and then he’ll smile instead of frown when I manage to get one in.

“Was that ok?” he asks shyly.

“Yes, of course” I smile up at him. “But you need to rest your leg; you have been standing on it for far too long.”  I say as I direct him to a chair and have him sit down.  I guess Mr. Mellark thought the same thing because I see him walking to us and he has Peeta’s crutches.  He glares at his dad when he sees them.

“It’s either these or I carry you home” his dad threatens.  Peeta shakes his head and grabs his crutches. Mr. Mellark goes to talk to my mom and check on my dad.

“Thank you for all your help” I say.

“I just wish I could stay longer” he said.

“No, you have helped a lot, now you need to rest” I tell him and give him another hug.

“Goodnight” he says “I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how your dad’s doing, Ok?”

“Ok, Goodnight Peeta” I say and peck his cheek.

About an hour later I finally get a break and go over to Prim.  I’ve become a pretty good healer it’s taken a lot of hard work and determination.  But Prim at 7 and just starting on her training, is a natural.

“Katniss, you take over this area, since there are less miners coming in.  I’m going to go help in the urgent section.”  Jasmine said.  By the time Prim and I are finished we’re dead on our feet.  We grab a couple of blankets and go to a corner where we aren’t in the way.  My eyes close the minute my head hits the ground.

When I wake up I’m back in my bed.  At first I think it must have been a bad dream but as I pull back the covers I’m still in my school clothes and they are covered in coal dust and specks of blood.  It was real.  I get out of bed slowly trying my best not to wake Prim.  I rush out of the room; my dad and Mr. Hawthorne are on cots in the living room.  Mom and a very pregnant Mrs. Hawthorne, have fallen asleep on the kitchen table.

I tread softly over to my dad taking in all his injuries.  Several bad burns, cuts, and as my eyes drift down his body I spot his legs.  One ends above the ankle “Oh daddy, no” I whisper as tears start to roll down my face.  Just for a few minutes I will allow myself to cry.  They are alive that’s all that matters.  I look over at Mr. Hawthorne and one of his arms has also been amputated.  I take a deep shaky breath to calm down; I wipe the tears off my face, no more crying I tell myself.

The front door opens.  Gale, Rory and Vick walk in and come over to see their dad.

“You kids need to be quiet” said Mrs. Hawthorne.  I see my mom is awake too.

“We need to go hunting Catnip” Gale said. He’s looking at his dad with sadness.  “They are not going to be able to work for a while and we need to keep things up until they can.”  I look up at him even at 11 Gale it a lot taller than me.

“Ok, let me go get changed” my healers training is going to have to take a backseat from now on.  I go into my room and start to undress and pull out clothes from the dresser.  “Prim, wake up” I say as she starts to stir.  “You’re going to need to help mom”

“But your better than me” she said.

“You’re catching on quicker than I did at your age.  Dads in bad shape Prim.  I’m going to have to concentrate on hunting for now.” I tell her, as I feel the weight of responsibility drop on my shoulders.  He’s not dead I remind myself it won’t be forever. “Get up, get dressed and see if mom needs anything” I say.  She nods her head and starts to do as I say.

This is the first time Gale and I have been out in the woods alone.  We trek along working the snarl line.  Shooting at every rabbit and squirrel we find.  We’ve been out since dawn so by mid day we have a decent haul.  Not bad at all seeing as it’s a bitter January day.  As we make our way to the hob we talk about how we’re going to make this work.  We will go hunting before and after school and as much as we can on the weekends.  It’ll be hard work but we’re determined to keep our families fed until our dads get better.  The hob is packed today.  Some people ask about our fathers but since most have their own family members to worry about we’re able to finish up trading quickly enough.  We’re starved and tired by the time we get home.

Peeta’s here, I had completely forgotten he was coming over and he’s using only his crutches.  He must be in a lot of pain.  A wave of guilt washes over me. On the rare occasion that he over uses his leg he has to forgo the prosthetic and use just the crutches until his leg gets better.  He’ll normally stay home when he needs them like this but he must have been more worried about us than any embarrassment he might feel at being seen without his prosthetic on.  I should have made him stop earlier yesterday.  He’s about to get up from his chair when he sees me and I just shake my head and hurry over to him, bending down I give him a quick hug.

“Oh Peeta, I’m so sorry.  We should have been more careful” I say.  “Did mom take a look at it?” I ask.

“She’s been busy with your dad and Mr. Hawthorne plus others that have been stopping by” he tells me.

“Let’s go to my room” I say.  Dropping my game bag on the table and handing my mom the coins I made today.

“Katniss you need to eat” my mom says.

“Let me take care of Peeta first.  We’ll be right back” Peeta was about to say something but I just shake my head no.  He knows not to complain when I’m in healer mood.

I have him sit on the bed and I unlock and pull out the bottom drawer of my dresser.  I have extra jars of salve for Peeta saved in here.  I make these myself and learned never to leave then in my moms medicine cabinet because they’ll get all used up and only replaced when I make more.  I had my dad install a combination lock when I realized my mom was sneaking some.  I’m the only one you knows the combination.  No one messes with Peeta’s medicine and get away with it.

He has already rolled up his pant leg and I kneel down and start to massage the salve onto his stump.  “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, just a little redness and some swelling should be fine by tomorrow.  Do you need more to take home” I ask.

“Ya, I hadn’t realized I had run out” he said sheepishly.

“How many times do I have to remind you that when you’re down to one jar to let me know?  I have 5 in here I’ll give them to you before you go home.” I say.  “Did you bring back any of the empty ones?”

He nods.  “You’re always taking care of me”

“Of course, you’re my best friend.  I’d do anything for you”

“Same here” he said with a smile.  I grab a towel and wipe off my hands.  I’m too tired for anything right now so I climb and lay down on the bed.

“Katniss, you need to eat” he reminds me.

“I need a nap first” I say with a yawn. I feel him shift on the bed and he takes me in his arms.  I rest my head on his chest.  The beating of his heart is lulling me to sleep.  “Stay with me?” I ask.  As sleep takes me under I hear him whisper.

“Always”

Also on FFN  AO3

[existenceisalot]

high school

Today in my English class, we were reading our novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest, when one of the characters said this quote:

“Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren’t gonna feel anything else, either.  And the world is full of pain.  Also joy. Evil. Goodness.  Horror and love.  You name it, it’s there.  Sealing yourself off is just going through the motions, get it?”

This part has stuck with me all day, and I think it’s because it reminds me of myself.

I’ve always been fairly closed off with my emotions; I don’t like talking to people about what I feel, and I have difficulty a lot of the time with understanding other people’s feelings.

This quote also makes me think especially about 8th-10th grade.  In the poem I posted earlier, I kind of mention some of this.  Some of the lines are scattered through this post to kind of explain stuff.

At the beginning of 8th grade, I told myself that I could just avoid the people from 7th grade.  Unfortunately, I go to a really small school (at the time I think there were 25-28 people in my grade), and all but (I think) 1 of my classes were with this group of 7 people who I used to consider my friends until I realized none of them cared about me at all (unless they needed something).

So I quickly realized I was going to be spending pretty much all of my (school) time with them.  Now I would just be like “oh well, guess I’ll suffer, but who cares about them.”  (which is me in my math class with them right now yay)

Eighth grade me, however, was recovering from two heartbreaks, realizing that I only had one real friend, and feeling trapped in this tiny little school in the tiny rural town.  My logic was not the best, obviously.  I also still cared so much about these people.  (Honestly, I’m still working on not caring as much about them.)  They’d been my friends since I started first grade not knowing a single person.  One of them was my first friend in that class.  She was the person that I looked up to all the way until that day.  If you’d have asked me before that, I would have said that I would do almost anything for my classmates.

The first week or two, I managed to hold on to my pure rage against them and ignore them.  But that’s not healthy and it was not having a good effect on me.  Rather than talking to someone, I just got rid of (almost) all of the painful feelings.  At the time, I didn’t even realize, let alone know how to describe it.  Now, I think I’d describe it as pouring a layer of concrete over my heart - closing off the feelings that were causing my pain.  Now, as I wrote in my poem, that doesn’t just get rid of negative feelings; it gets rid of all of them.  

“So you shut it away with the rest of your pain,

And realize too late that in losing your pain

You’ve also lost you.”

The rest of that year, I spent convincing myself that I got along with them, and that they were my friends.  And they were decent enough for this to work.  They know how to put on a show at least (they’ve got all the teachers convinced.)  I talked with people about books we liked, and chatted during Scholastic Bowl and Track.  Every time I noticed they were ignoring me, or avoiding me, or excluding me, it was another “layer of concrete”.

“Do you know what it’s like to sit in class

Listening as everyone else makes plans

For lunch, for the weekend, for their lives?

And they don’t even consider asking you

Even though you’re right there - the one person they didn’t ask.”

By Freshman year, I was a mess.  I’d convinced myself that we were a group of friends, and mostly blocked out the memory of 7th grade.  So when the third best friend of two best friends in the group (the one I talked to about books and my former role model) moved to our school for freshman year and they all completely stopped talking to me, the wounds started to open up again.

Nope, don’t have time for pain, don’t have time for emotions, just another layer of concrete.

I don’t remember much of that year of school.  I spent it in a daze, no friends at my school, just trying to make it through the day, going through the motions.  Wake up, walk to school, stay awake in my classes, walk home, do homework, eat dinner, do homework, go to bed, repeat.

And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy other things.  My best friend and I would fangirl over books, music, anything honestly.  Once, we named handwarmers after Gale and Peeta (Hunger Games).  I think this is the year my sister and I started watching Doctor Who.  My sister read Harry Potter, and we fangirled over everything about it.  I read over a hundred books, one of which was Les Miserables.  From the outside, I seemed pretty okay.

Sophomore year.  I don’t even really remember anything from sophomore year.  This is the year everything really went downhill.

I started out okay, a couple people in my grade who I’d always been somewhat friendly with invited me to sit with them at lunch.  (I’d been sitting alone for the past year.)  We became sort of friends.  First semester seemed okay from the outside.

“Do you know what it’s like when someone finally notices you

Even just for a second?

And then you think maybe - just maybe

Things could be different someday.”

“Do you know what it’s like to have a friend one day,

And it’s wonderful and you finally feel like you belong,”

But it wasn’t.  I was still in classes with the same people (we’re the so called advanced class.)  I started to not care about school.  My grades started dropping.  I went from a straight A student to a B and C student.  I stopped doing my chores.  I stopped showering every day (gross, but true).  I stopped brushing my hair (I have thicker, somewhat wavy/curly hair).  I stopped wearing my retainers (I got my braces off the summer before 8th grade).  I started going to bed at 3 in the morning, even though I had to be to school by 7:15.

Second semester started out about the same.  But then, out of nowhere, a couple weeks into school my two new friends stopped sitting at our table.  No explanation whatsoever.  It was like I had ceased to exist.

“But the next day you don’t even exist in their world?

And it feels like your heart is breaking, ripping, dying.”

The only reason I didn’t spiral even farther down after that was because of my best friend.  She was homeschooled, so we would hangouts message each other through the day.  I know I keep mentioning her a lot, but she is just an amazing friend, and I don’t know who I would be without her.

“Do you know what it’s like when your phone buzzes at lunch

With that message from your best friend that makes you laugh out loud?

And you sit there, shoulders shaking

And for a moment, nothing is wrong in the world.”

Second semester came and went.  I participated in stage crew for our school musical.  I was on the Scholastic Bowl team.  I went to state for math team.  We read Night by Elie Wiesel.  I started listening to BTS (again thanks to my best friend.)  I passed my classes, with mostly B’s and C’s except for Band and Art.

Also in second semester is when this part happened.

“Do you know what it’s like when your friend asks you that question,

The question that is so simple - so ordinary?

And it’s the question you never knew you needed,

Never knew would work,

But it forces you to open your heart again,

To feel again.”

My best friend asked me who my BTS bias was.  I had already watched a ton of their videos, but no one really stood out.  I thought they were cool, and noticed they were attractive, but I didn’t really think about people like that.

This led me to realize what I’d done.  I had prevented myself from getting attached to people in any way, because every time I had a crush, or even just friends at school, it broke my heart.

I realized what this had been doing to me.  So I started working on being a bit more vulnerable.  I started actually looking at people again.  I started talking a bit more about school other than “wow I hate school.”

And I kept watching BTS videos so my best friend would stop spamming with pictures questioning if this one was my bias.

And it’s been painful, but I’ve been so much happier in the past 10 months than I was for the previous two years.  That’s not to say that I like school now - I hate it.  The closest college I’ve looked at is 4 hours away.  I have an actual countdown until my graduation ceremony.  My grades are nowhere near excellent, but I’ve been trying more.  And every day I remind myself that Someday Things Will Be Different, and if I can make it through the next 564.5 days, I can leave this school behind me and be a new person.  Not the quiet little kid who doesn’t talk to people, not the smart girl that skipped a grade, not the person that hides in the back of the room in their oversized clothing so people won’t notice them.  I don’t know who I’ll be, but at least I’ll get a choice.

And because of that silly little question,

Because of your best friend,

You start to find yourself again.

Do you know what it’s like to be me?

originally written November 2, 2017

[animegirl1363]

Neo Romance Ch 2

Crow hogan is transported to his favorite game, giving him the chance to romance his favorite NPC. In the game there is little to no info about Brave, but that only made Crow more interested in the mysterious treasure hunter. Will he be able to achieve his Trickster ending?

AO3

FF.net

NOTE: I'm probably stop tagging the fic after this chapter as to not flood/spam the tags.

Crow woke up at his usual time, the only difference today is that he can’t hear the squawks of his birds. He whistled for his birds. No response. Which means they are probably at Yusei’s place. Sometimes they like to hangout there and play with Sonic Chick and Quillbolt Hedgehog. That was Crow’s destination today.

When Crow arrived at the garage, he did not expect to see Brave hanging out here. He was giving head pats to Blizzard.

“Good morning.” Crow said.

“Morning!” Brave grinned.

Blizzard receded into Brave’s arms, thinking he was in trouble. Truthfully, Crow never punishes his birds.

“I’m guessing this little fella belongs to you.” Brave said as he returned Blizzard to Crow.

“Crow!” From the other room entered a not-so-happy Bruno. “We already have two animals running around here, we don’t need more.”

“Sorry.” It was said in way that Bruno knew it would happen again and Crow was just following a script. Bruno hung his down.

Crow whistle and out came Gale with his two friends. A pink bird named Sonic Chick and an orange hedgehog with bolts in its back named Quillbolt Hedgehog. They were friends with Blizzard and Gale.

“As for your motorcycle Brave,” Bruno turned his attention to the other red head in the room. “It has a flat. We’re going to have to order a new tire for you. It will take a while to for it to arrive.”

Brave nodded. “I see…”

“That would mean you are stranded here.” Crow said.

“Seems that way.”

“You can stay at my place.” Crow offered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep! Besides you can’t stay here, Bruno is finicky about his personal space.”

“What!” Bruno yelled.

“He’s right.” Yusei walked up behind Bruno.

It was settled that Brave would stay with me until his motorcycle was fixed. This would be a perfect time for Crow to try to get closer to Brave.

-

“And that’s how escaped the cave.” Brave finished his latest tale.

“Cool!” Yoshi said.

“Do you have another story?” Amanda asked.

“Liar.” Spat Ginga

“Another one!” Taka yelled.

“Who called me a liar!?” Brave wanted to know.

“Show them one of your treasures.” Crow suggested.

Brave reached into his bag and pulled out several jewels to show off. Crow recognized them as the colors of the rhinestone on the rings you could buy from Brave in the game. Each color corresponded with a romance option. A deep red for Akiza, a dark blue for Yusei, a pastel blue for Kiryu, yellow for Jack, and Bruno’s jewel was gray. A shiny purple jewel fell to the floor. The reaction from the kids varied but most were happy for solid proof of an adventure. After story time was over, the kids disperse to do their own thing.

-

Sunday was normally an off day, but not this one.

Crow woke up to his boss sending him a text message that he had to deliver a package today.

‘So, this event is happening.’ Crow thought. “Curse express packages.”

How this event would usually play out is that the character with the highest affinity would come over wanting to hangout and the player could invite them on the job trip. Each character has their own version of the event.

No one showed up at Crow’s door as he got ready. This meant that Crow wasn’t that close with the other characters yet. Or they all had something else to do. He knew someone who had no plans, “Brave!”

“Five more minutes…” Brave mumbled.

“I need your help on a delivery.” Crow said.

“Why are you making demands this early in the morning…?” Brave rubbed the sleep from his eyes trying to go back to sleep.

“Its one package and I don’t want to do it alone.” Crow put on his best puppy face.

“Stop making that stupid face!” Brave gave in. “I’ll go if it means you won’t make that look ever again!”

I drove us to the shipping center to pick up the package. Since the package was big, we took the company postal truck.

“Why did they call you? Are there not workers that live in the city?” Brave asked.

“Let’s just say they like to give me extra workloads hoping I fail…” Crow said in a tone that indicated ‘don’t take this any further’. Brave seemed to have caught on and pried no more.

Being an outsider Brave had little knowledge on the relationship between Domino City and Satellite. As an NPC if you talked to him, he would make comments about the current events depending on what was going on in the game.

“We are here.” Crow announced.

“This is Harald’s place.” Brave said as he quickly ran up to the door. His friend answered the door. He began to explain his predicament to them as Crow unloaded the package by himself. All while glaring at his supposed helper. Brave pretended to not notice anything, but Harald pinched him for abandoning his duties.

Brave never mentions anything about his friends. Not a single sentence in a dialogue box dedicated to talk about them.

“If you need to come back here, I can bring you.” Crow offered.

“Its fine.” Brave shrugged. “They can Harald and Dragon can survive without me.”

If Brave was lax about, so was Crow. They finished the job and quietly returned to Satellite.

[skytlake]

Feeling Pain

Today in my English class, we were reading our novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest, when one of the characters said this quote:

“Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren’t gonna feel anything else, either.  And the world is full of pain.  Also joy. Evil. Goodness.  Horror and love.  You name it, it's there.  Sealing yourself off is just going through the motions, get it?”

This part has stuck with me all day, and I think it’s because it reminds me of myself.

I’ve always been fairly closed off with my emotions; I don’t like talking to people about what I feel, and I have difficulty a lot of the time with understanding other people’s feelings.

This quote also makes me think especially about 8th-10th grade.  In the poem I posted earlier, I kind of mention some of this.  Some of the lines are scattered through this post to kind of explain stuff.

In order to understand this, you probably need to read what I wrote about my 7th grade experience.

At the beginning of 8th grade, I told myself that I could just avoid the people from 7th grade.  Unfortunately, I go to a really small school (at the time I think there were 25-28 people in my grade), and all but (I think) 1 of my classes were with this group of 7 people who I used to consider my friends until I realized none of them cared about me at all (unless they needed something).

So I quickly realized I was going to be spending pretty much all of my (school) time with them.  Now I would just be like “oh well, guess I’ll suffer, but who cares about them.”  (which is me in my math class with them right now yay)

Eighth grade me, however, was recovering from two heartbreaks, realizing that I only had one real friend, and feeling trapped in this tiny little school in the tiny rural town.  My logic was not the best, obviously.  I also still cared so much about these people.  (Honestly, I’m still working on not caring as much about them.)  They’d been my friends since I started first grade not knowing a single person.  One of them was my first friend in that class.  She was the person that I looked up to all the way until that day.  If you’d have asked me before that, I would have said that I would do almost anything for my classmates.

The first week or two, I managed to hold on to my pure rage against them and ignore them.  But that’s not healthy and it was not having a good effect on me.  Rather than talking to someone, I just got rid of (almost) all of the painful feelings.  At the time, I didn’t even realize, let alone know how to describe it.  Now, I think I’d describe it as pouring a layer of concrete over my heart - closing off the feelings that were causing my pain.  Now, as I wrote in my poem, that doesn’t just get rid of negative feelings; it gets rid of all of them.  

“So you shut it away with the rest of your pain,

And realize too late that in losing your pain

You’ve also lost you.”

The rest of that year, I spent convincing myself that I got along with them, and that they were my friends.  And they were decent enough for this to work.  They know how to put on a show at least (they’ve got all the teachers convinced.)  I talked with people about books we liked, and chatted during Scholastic Bowl and Track.  Every time I noticed they were ignoring me, or avoiding me, or excluding me, it was another “layer of concrete”.

“Do you know what it’s like to sit in class

Listening as everyone else makes plans

For lunch, for the weekend, for their lives?

And they don’t even consider asking you

Even though you’re right there - the one person they didn’t ask.”

By Freshman year, I was a mess.  I’d convinced myself that we were a group of friends, and mostly blocked out the memory of 7th grade.  So when the third best friend of two best friends in the group (the one I talked to about books and my former role model) moved to our school for freshman year and they all completely stopped talking to me, the wounds started to open up again.

Nope, don’t have time for pain, don’t have time for emotions, just another layer of concrete.

I don’t remember much of that year of school.  I spent it in a daze, no friends at my school, just trying to make it through the day, going through the motions.  Wake up, walk to school, stay awake in my classes, walk home, do homework, eat dinner, do homework, go to bed, repeat.

And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy other things.  My best friend and I would fangirl over books, music, anything honestly.  Once, we named handwarmers after Gale and Peeta (Hunger Games).  I think this is the year my sister and I started watching Doctor Who.  My sister read Harry Potter, and we fangirled over everything about it.  I read over a hundred books, one of which was Les Miserables.  From the outside, I seemed pretty okay.

Sophomore year.  I don’t even really remember anything from sophomore year.  This is the year everything really went downhill.

I started out okay, a couple people in my grade who I’d always been somewhat friendly with invited me to sit with them at lunch.  (I’d been sitting alone for the past year.)  We became sort of friends.  First semester seemed okay from the outside.

“Do you know what it’s like when someone finally notices you

Even just for a second?

And then you think maybe - just maybe

Things could be different someday.”

“Do you know what it’s like to have a friend one day,

And it’s wonderful and you finally feel like you belong,”

But it wasn’t.  I was still in classes with the same people (we’re the so called advanced class.)  I started to not care about school.  My grades started dropping.  I went from a straight A student to a B and C student.  I stopped doing my chores.  I stopped showering every day (gross, but true).  I stopped brushing my hair (I have thicker, somewhat wavy/curly hair).  I stopped wearing my retainers (I got my braces off the summer before 8th grade).  I started going to bed at 3 in the morning, even though I had to be to school by 7:15.

Second semester started out about the same.  But then, out of nowhere, a couple weeks into school my two new friends stopped sitting at our table.  No explanation whatsoever.  It was like I had ceased to exist.

“But the next day you don’t even exist in their world?

And it feels like your heart is breaking, ripping, dying.”

The only reason I didn’t spiral even farther down after that was because of my best friend.  She was homeschooled, so we would hangouts message each other through the day.  I know I keep mentioning her a lot, but she is just an amazing friend, and I don’t know who I would be without her.

“Do you know what it’s like when your phone buzzes at lunch

With that message from your best friend that makes you laugh out loud?

And you sit there, shoulders shaking

And for a moment, nothing is wrong in the world.”

Second semester came and went.  I participated in stage crew for our school musical.  I was on the Scholastic Bowl team.  I went to state for math team.  We read Night by Elie Wiesel.  I started listening to BTS (again thanks to my best friend.)  I passed my classes, with mostly B’s and C’s except for Band and Art.

Also in second semester is when this part happened.

“Do you know what it’s like when your friend asks you that question,

The question that is so simple - so ordinary?

And it’s the question you never knew you needed,

Never knew would work,

But it forces you to open your heart again,

To feel again.”

My best friend asked me who my BTS bias was.  I had already watched a ton of their videos, but no one really stood out.  I thought they were cool, and noticed they were attractive, but I didn’t really think about people like that.

This led me to realize what I’d done.  I had prevented myself from getting attached to people in any way, because every time I had a crush, or even just friends at school, it broke my heart.

I realized what this had been doing to me.  So I started working on being a bit more vulnerable.  I started actually looking at people again.  I started talking a bit more about school other than “wow I hate school.”

And I kept watching BTS videos so my best friend would stop spamming with pictures questioning if this one was my bias. (No hard feelings, I’ve got a ton of Yoongi pictures saved to spam you with.  Just you wait) >:)

And it’s been painful, but I’ve been so much happier in the past 10 months than I was for the previous two years.  That’s not to say that I like school now - I hate it.  The closest college I’ve looked at is 4 hours away.  I have an actual countdown until my graduation ceremony.  My grades are nowhere near excellent, but I’ve been trying more.  And every day I remind myself that Someday Things Will Be Different, and if I can make it through the next 564.5 days, I can leave this school behind me and be a new person.  Not the quiet little kid who doesn’t talk to people, not the smart girl that skipped a grade, not the person that hides in the back of the room in their oversized clothing so people won’t notice them.  I don’t know who I’ll be, but at least I’ll get a choice.

And because of that silly little question,

Because of your best friend,

You start to find yourself again.

Do you know what it’s like to be me?

[badnovels]

The First Day

by sunsetsrmydreams

To Jessa, who blew up our world with a tiny drabble inspired by a grocery store. Thank you for being so encouraging!  

And a shoutout to @louezem for The Wedding!   

And I am so fucking sorry because there is some Galeniss in here. Rated…I’m going to go with M? But it may be E. There is a description of dick. You have been warned.

Part one of two.

 ——-

It’s her first day, she’s nervous as hell. Of course she would have to teach at the same school as Peeta. Damn her terrible luck!

This is a disaster.

What if she runs into him?

What if he tries to talk to her again like they’re old friends? She has to choke down the lump in her throat.

Maybe she should quit.

And move….across country…maybe Canada.

Taking a deep breath, she attempts to calm herself. She’s a grown-up and she going to act like one. If she sees him, she will hold it together this time.  Their relationship was over years ago, if she runs into him, she’ll be distant and polite. She will be unmoved by his presence.

She vows to the mirror in her hallway that Peeta Mellark will never know the pain she still carries.

From now on, he will be nothing to her.

Walking into the school with her head held high, she makes her way to the Guidance office. A slim woman with platform heels and a huge blond beehive comes straight towards her.

“Ms. Everdeen!” she trills. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I’m Effie Trinket and I’ll be showing you around today. Follow me, please.”

“Ms. Trinket, Mr. Abernathy already took me around and I was a student here so I’m pretty sure I know where everything is,” Katniss explains as kindly as she can while trying to ditch this woman.

“Tut tut. Ms. Everdeen, it is not only my job to show you around our beautiful school but I will also be introducing you to the staff,” Ms. Trinket replies forcefully.

Katniss’ heart drops. Her first day hasn’t even started and she is already going to be forced into a meet and greet with Peeta. Great.

She follows a teetering Effie around the school as she points out this and that, introducing teachers along the way. So far Katniss’ luck has held out. Peeta is nowhere in sight.

Katniss breaths a sigh of relief, walking a few steps behind Effie as she leads her down the hall and through a large carved mahogany door that is, apparently, original to the school. 

“This is the teacher’s lounge. Many of us like to have lunch here and feel free to make yourself at home whenever you have a free period.“ Effie says as she makes her way to the mirror to fix her hair.

Katniss looks around at the comfy leather couches, a table and chairs, vending machines and refrigerator. It’s actually quite….homey.

“Ah. Here is another one of out teachers now!” Effie squeals as she rushes back over.

Katniss squeezes her eyes shut for a moment before plastering a smile on her face. She turns.

But it’s not Peeta who stands before her.

This man is textbook tall dark and ruggedly handsome. In fact, he is the exact opposite of Peeta. Katniss likes him immediately.

Effie continues her introduction “Ms. Everdeen, Science, meet Mr. Hawthorne, History.”

Mr. Hawthorne smiles and holds out a hand. Which she promptly shakes.

“Gale Hawthorne.”

“Katniss Everdeen.”

“It’s great to meet you, Katniss. It about time we got some new blood around here.” He grins at her.

“Yeah, I suppose you have a lot of lifers here considering the teacher I’m replacing is 65 years old,” she says dryly.

He laughs. “We have a hour before class starts, I know you have to set up you classroom, but would you like to sit for a minute and chat?”

“Um, sure.” She can’t turn him down. He’s handsome and friendly, plus she could really use an ally in this place. He introduces her to several more teachers as they wander in. He motions her over and they take a seat at the table.

They’re discussing their class schedules and laughing at last year’s hijinks when she hears someone clear their throat loudly right behind her. She turns on instinct and immediately wishes she hadn’t.

Peeta is practically standing over her shoulder. She has no idea how long he’s been there but due to the strange expression that he is trying desperately to hide she guesses he has been there for a while.

“Katniss,” he states.

“Hello, Mr. Mellark.” She’s proud that her voice doesn't waver.

“I see you’ve met Mr. Hawthorne,” he mutters.

“Yes, I have, but now I think I should be getting to class.” She gathers up her notes, looking at Gale she smiles. “Thanks for the chat and for the suggestions, I’ll try to implement them.”

As she walks out she can feel Peeta right on her heels.

“Katniss, wait,” he pleads.

“I don’t have time for this Peeta, I need to get to class,” she says lowly.

“You had time to sit and “chat” with Mr. Hawthorne and you can’t spare a minute to talk with me?“ he fumes.

She rounds on him, eyes blazing. "Don’t you dare act jealous! I haven’t seen you in years, I owe you nothing.” Turning, she stalks to her classroom and starts to prepare for the day.

Peeta, wisely, does not follow her.

Katniss survived her last class, quickly packing up her things and making her way out of the school.  She’s surprised to see Mr. Hawthorne waiting for her at the doors leading to the parking lot.

“Hey. How was your first day?” he asks excitedly.

“I think it went well, it’s my first year teaching at this grade level, I’m just hoping they don’t chew me up and spit me out,” she laughs.

“Your tougher than that, I know it.” He smiles. “I’m not going to beat around the bush….would you like to go to dinner with me on Friday?”

“Like… a date?” she asks cautiously

“Yep, a date.”

“Um…s-sure,” she stutters.

 "Great! I’ll see you Friday.“ He turns and strides to his car a few rows over, giving her a little wave as he pulls out of the lot.

What did she just do?

Katniss starts walking toward the row where her car is parked, berating herself for accepting Gale’s dinner invitation to dinner. 

When she looks up, she can’t help the "fuck” that leaves her lips.

Because, standing beside her green Honda, in all his glory, is Peeta Fucking Mellark.

Moving home was such a bad idea….

She tries to keep calm as she stalks to her car, but all she really wants to do is punch him. She needs to scream at him again for breaking her heart when he got her former best friend pregnant. She wonders if these feelings will ever go way?

She still remembers that day. She had been miserable for the weeks she was without him, she drove all the way to his dorm to apologize and ask him if they could try again. She knew long distance would be hard but it couldn’t be any harder than this. 

She’ll never forget walking into his room after finding the door ajar and seeing he and Madge wrapped together in a strong embrace. Katniss was shocked but still saw the white stick, clutched in Madge’s hand, with those treacherous pink lines.

When Peeta saw her out of the corner of his eye, he went pale and dropped his arms, turning his whole body toward her, a look of agony on his face.

Katniss’ voice was barely a whisper. “Explain this."     

He did. 

And all hell broke loose.  

She cut them out of her life, finding it easier to deal with the pain if it was wrapped up tight in a little box and shoved to the furthest corner of her mind.  She changed her number, her email and deleted her social media. After confiding in Prim, her sister tried to comfort her, so afraid that Katniss would turn into their mother.

 But she needn’t have worried. Katniss was a survivor. But she still spent most of that vacation home in bed.

One afternoon, she heard Prim screaming. Katniss lunged out of bed and raced in down the hall in skidding into the living room just in time to see Prim chuck the phone against the far wall. Katniss had never seen such a display from her sweet sister, so she just looked on with owl eyes.  

Prim turned to her face red with anger. ” Damn telemarketers! They won’t be calling here again.“  She runs over and hugs Katniss tightly before retreating to her room.

Katniss knew it wasn’t a telemarketer. But when she saw Prim trying to protect her, she knew…she had to do better.

She bent down and picked up the pieces, sliding the battery pack back into the phone before snapping on the cover. Miraculously, it still worked. 

She moved on, kept that hurt broken part of her secret.

But four years later when she heard Peeta and Madge were getting married, she couldn’t stop herself from driving to the church.

For some reason, she had to see it with her own two eyes. 

The tears came without warning as Katniss watched them walk out, each taking time to hug their little girl. 

Katniss catches Rye staring at her from the yard, she can read the sadness on his face from across the street.

When her gaze moves back to the bride and groom, she notices Peeta watching Rye, following his gaze straight to her car. 

Time to go.

She pulls away quickly, refusing to look back, closing the book on that part of her life.

Remembering that day makes her feel less bad about the scowl etched on her face as she approaches him.

"Peeta, what are you doing here?” She moves past him to open her car door just enough to throw her things inside.

"We need to talk, Katniss. Please,” he begs as he runs a nervous hand through his ruffled curls.

“We don’t. We have history, can’t we just forget it?” she says dismissively as she tries to keep her face indifferent.

“I don’t want to forget,” he says quietly.

She snorts. “Sure. You had no problem forgetting when you were balls deep in my best friend without a condom. So fuck off, Peeta.” She jerks open her car door further, moving him out of the way as she climbs inside trying to ignore the absolutely crushed look on his face.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she looks back and sees him still standing there, hands hanging limply at his sides,shoulders hunched.

“Fuck,” she whispers. How is she going to get through this?

Peeta stays away for the rest of the week but she can feel his eyes on her. When she accidently meets them, they are wounded and sad. 

She reminds herself that this is not her fault.

On Friday Gale walks her out and they go over their dinner plans. She can’t wait. She needs this. One night when she’s not thinking about the biggest betrayal of her life.

Rooting through the boxes in her disorganized closet she finally finds it, the only sexy black dress she owns. Pulling it on over her lace boy-shorts, she forgoes a bra, she doesn’t really need one anyway. Shaking her hair from it’s braid after adding the barest hint of makeup, she’s ready to go.

Gale picks her up at seven sharp. Anticipation is a feeling she hasn’t felt in so long. She can’t help but grin, and Gale is even more handsome when he returns it. The drive is quiet but nice.

Twenty minutes later they walk into the restaurant, and after checking their reservation, the hostess leads them to the dining room and sets menus on their designated table.

Katniss stops abruptly, her eyes widen and she stands frozen. 

The Universe must really fucking hate her, because sitting not three tables in front of them are Peeta and Madge, a stack of papers sitting between them. Madge flips through busily.

Peeta sees her first.

He always had a weird sixth sense when she walkes into a room. His eyes round, his mouth falls open and she watches him whisper her name.

He glances at the man by her side before moving his burning eyes back to her. Katniss doesn’t miss the way he flushes as his eyes rake over her body, taking in every inch of her.

A second later Madge looks up from the paperwork to see Peeta’s lustful gaze and follows it till she meets Katniss’ eyes.

Katniss panics. 

“I’m sorry, but we need to leave right now," she states and takes Gale’s hand.

Perplexed but accommodating, he says, "Okay, lets go.”

Following her as she dashes out of the lobby not stopping till they reach the car. He doesn’t bother to ask her about it on the drive home.

She fucks Gale on her couch that night, third date rule be damned.

His cock is hard as steel and a good size, that’s all she needs. She knows she’s using him but she’d do anything to avoid the tangle of emotions that threaten to choke her.

After sliding the condom into place, she rides him hard and fast and she can tell he’s not going to last at this pace, so she moves her hand down her body, rubbing circles over her clit.

It feels good.

She lets her eyes slide closed for a moment, but in her mind she sees broad shoulders and blond hair, her eyes spring open.  She keeps them open, trained on Gale’s face, gabbing a fistful of his dark hair, he grunts.  He grabs her hips, rocking her harder against him until he comes, groaning loudly. Katniss follows seconds later with a quiet moan.

 She can tell he wants to stay afterward but when she doesn’t invite him to, he leaves her with a soft kiss and a promise to see her at work. She feels like shit.

She really wishes she had thought this through.

When Monday morning comes around she contemplates quitting….again.

She walks quickly into the teachers lounge hoping to grab her morning cup of coffee without running into anyone. Looking around, she lets out a sigh of relief when she sees she’s alone.

She almost makes it.

Gale meets her at the door, leaning down and laying a quick kiss on her lips. Katniss looks up startled, she hears a strange sound to her left and turns to see Peeta, his eyes clenched and face pale before he does an about face and heads in the other direction.

Gale doesn’t notice.

“I had a great time Friday. Are you free tonight?”

She doesn’t know why she says yes.

[cryamore]

MINI UPDATE PART 1: Backer-only Discord Server Questions

Mirroring a recent Kickstarter update over here on Tumblr to try and keep all the social outlets up to date.

This has to be split into two parts because Tumblr only allows five embedded videos per post.

Thanks for everyone’s comments and support on the previous Kickstarter backer only update! A good number of people have joined the Cryamore Backer Discord server that I started up.

We’ve got about 132 members on there right now and it may grow a bit more once I send out the invite to the Paypal backers as a means to get them caught up with what’s been going on behind the backer-only posts. I just have to mirror the backer-only posts in somewhere like Dropbox for their prolonged perusal and prepare a short list of Q&A in case they have any queries and I’ll send out this draft I’ve done.

With that said, I wanted to make a short update reiterating questions gathered from the Discord channels and sharing some of the things we feel we can have non-backers see since it won’t spoil the game... too much.

FoolishWolf asked: I guess my first question is if it is possible to give an ETA on the project at this point?

Rob: We want to be finished this year. We're currently in the "Polish" phase where all the moving and working parts are in, it's just a matter of cleaning up presentation, major bugs, and final art.

Alan: There are going to be gameplay polishes too as we go along. The mechanics we've got are now all adjusted to any suggestions we've taken in from our publisher's testing but we'd like to see if during the backer tests, anyone feels it could be improved further.

That's fair. I guess this is just the marketer in me, but is there gifs and videos that maybe you can release for the community for #Indiedevhour and #screenshotsaturday that we share around. Kinda get the hype train going?

Rob: We want to get back into doing more of that, yeah. Now that we're polishing stuff up.

Alan: We'll be sharing stuff as often as we can on Discord which we'll then pool together for the mini updates.

Clay | Terminally Nerdy asked:

Once the game is in a “playable” preview state, would you all want someone to stream/talk about it?

We’re absolutely okay with it as this would help reinforce the fact that the game is legit. We’ll make sure to mark which builds are public ready.

Can you get Atlus to port the Persona series to PC, and will Jack Frost be in the game?

We sadly don’t have that kind of pull but I personally would like to see the Persona series on PC too.

Phosphatide asked:

How close is it to the proposed "40+ tracks" from the Kickstarter?

We’re pretty much within the forty track count already. I’ll share surasshu’s answer here as it’s better to hear it from one of our composers.

here's a link to a larger version (just adjust the zoom) in case Kickstarter decides to shrink the whole thing to an unreadable point.

fpwong asked:

What do ppl usually use for programming AI in Unity? UE4 has inbuilt behaviour trees but idk if unity has anything of the sort.

Alan: We’re not sure about other people using Unity but for us, we’ve been using a mix of C# and FlowCanvas/NodeCanvas to achieve an easily tweakable AI system. It’s the same thing we used to set up our cutscene/dialogue system too, so it’s multipurpose!

Rob: This video is quite outdated though; It’s mostly the dialogue on example there and a few older bugs but that shows how the dialogue tree is set up, how it can control objects to walk away from the scene, change sprites and more.

Brendan (luigimeistersa) asked:

Hey dev guys. Does Cryamore have any kind of buffs you can apply to Esmy?

Alan: We sadly don’t have much in way of buff abilities besides things like Oxy Barrier which provide you with a protective bubble and allow you to breathe underwater or other abilities like Time Paradox and Shadow Cloak. You do get a Well Rested buff though from sleeping at the inn though and the buff comes at various tiers.

Can you bind them (abilities) to the row of number keys on PC?

Alan: We're using Rewired for Unity to support keybinding and a variety of controllers (here's a list) so you should be able to rebind controls to any key you wish on a desktop keyboard.

Rob: Controllers may be more limited for keybinding in comparison, however.

AreYouSmarterThanACheeseGrater asked:

So, how are you going to work sleeping? Will time advance a set number of hours or will time progress to the next morning/evening?

Alan: Here’s an excerpt from our design document to easily explain how sleeping works.

Take note, costs are subject to change but sleeping in specific beds advances time by a set amount and you get better rest in a shorter amount of time from the more expensive rooms at the inn (to be fully rested and free from fatigue for a day in just two hours would be amazing). You do have the option to be cheap and just sleep in your own bed but you use up more time in a day.

Downing energy drinks is a way to stay awake without having to sleep but you can only carry so much and it won't fully restore your fatigue and you'll eventually find yourself sleeping on the ground, helpless against any threats around you.

shadowreaper5 asked: Are you still looking for help? I can't draw or code, but if you need someone to poke every corner for bugs I'm your man

We'll put out a public call for assistants when there's nothing else left but the art polish push, there's a bit of design polish that Rob and I still have to work on here and there but when the backgrounds and pixel tracing are all that's left, we're hoping we get many applicants that're willing to stick through.

As for poking every corner for bugs, I've currently given 13 members on the Backer Discord @tester status. Having them on Discord will help us all communicate as they run the builds. I expect we're going to have a few questions of why the game won't start when loading a save (recurring bug that happened in old builds regarding data from a previous build being kept in the %appdata% folder on Windows systems and conflicting with the new build)

Does your [insert magic equivalent here] regenerate quicker if you sleep in a bed/inn?

Alan: In our aim to nail down the fun factor without sacrificing too much of the original vision, we decided to make EP regenerate automatically.

You should see it in action in this older stress test video that Rob shared on the Discord server.

As you can see, the blue meter to the lower left goes down each time Esmy uses a skill. The meter is actually comprised of a number of cells but displays as a meter, the cell count is shown to the right of the meter as EP <number>. Each ability eats a number of cells, i.e. an ability like Ignite Lv1 costs = 1 cell but Shadow Cloak of any level will use = 4 cells. A channeled ability like Boulder Dash will eat up a cell every second.

Cells can be increased by finding certain collectibles in the game.

Rob: You can also see in the video above that even in-editor, the game runs pretty smoothly (60FPS+) with 8 monsters and numerous adds it summons.

Alan: I've personally tried it on my own PC with a 1GB video card from 7 years ago and it runs fine in-editor and runs even better on a compiled build.

lemon-rev asked: With your post regarding the update, I can now fully understand why the game looks at is base level, playtime on each of those levels sounds great, but are they leveling, completing quests, just beating up mobs, I am sure each of those other sections that have to be redone for unity as well as the type of content for each one.

Some context is necessary here for the non-backers reading this. During the previous backer update, I mentioned the listed completion times we got for each dungeon when we had testers run through it, here are those numbers...

Northern Caverns v1 Build: 20-30 minutes

Rime Rapids v1 Build: 30-40 minutes

Molten Mountain v1 Build: 30-40 minutes

Terrestrial Woods v1 Build: 40-60 minutes  

Vale of Gale v1 Build: 40-60 minutes  

Sunken Ship v2 Build: 40-120 minutes

Mekanika v2 Build: 40-120 minutes

Phantom Marshes v2 Build: 40-120 minutes

The v1 builds were before I ran a level design revamp over the layouts so those numbers can go up. All in all though, that's currently around 4.6 hours worth of dungeon crawling (and there's one dungeon unaccounted for still).

With that bit of context given, to fully answer lemon-rev's question, take note, these are all approximate numbers as there was a guide provided for the publisher testers to consult and these numbers also DO NOT include boss fights, cutscenes or enemy ambushes. There's also the time required to head out into the overworld and look for and access those dungeons so we estimate that we could hit 12 hours at the very least of regular gameplay without completing any sidequests and hopefully 16-18 hours if you try to 100% the whole game.

sky asked: Is Linux still planned?

Yes! This is also why we're going to have to reach out to our backers for testing assistance as we've only been able to test on PC and Mac so far and do not have much if any Linux testbeds.

We've had a number of people on the Discord server that I've tagged as willing testers and we look forward to working with them soon!

CONTINUED IN PART 2

[kriscme]

One Life To Live

Hi, here’s the latest chapter.   Thanks to Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take” which you can find on AO3 and FanFiction.   Subject to change if it suits the plot and when finished  will go on AO3. Chapter 23

It’s almost dark when we get home.   It’s my fault.    I spent half the night awake worrying over Peeta and the other half having nightmares of shooting arrow after arrow into a force field only to have them bounce back and hit Peeta instead.    Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep but when I woke, I found I’d overslept by nearly two hours.   Marcus said he didn’t wake me because he thought I needed the rest. But it put us behind, when we had planned a long walk for that day.   While Marcus heats up vegetable and bean soup, I put some left-over cheese buns in the oven to freshen up.  Dinner is almost ready when we’re interrupted by a knock at the front door.  It’s Johanna.   I step aside to let her in, but she doesn’t move from the porch.   “I’m not staying,” she says, her voice low.   “I thought you might like to know what’s going on with Peeta.  He got home last night just as I was getting into bed.   I didn’t see him until about mid-morning though when he came down for something to eat. He seemed – I don’t know – sort of flat and disinterested, like someone who doesn’t know what they should feel.   It’s hard to explain.  And when I went to apologize for last night, he just waved it away like it didn’t matter.  And then he went into his room to paint, and when he came out, it was to bake.   And that’s what he’s been doing all day – baking and painting.  He did phone Dr Aurelius though.  I accidently overheard some of it.”   “What did he say?”  I ask, putting aside any scruples that we’re discussing Peeta’s private conversation with his therapist. “Well, I only heard snatches, but it was like, “don’t know what’s real,” “deceived by someone I should trust,” “got everything wrong,” and “feel like not trying anymore.”  He didn’t really say that much.  Dr Aurelius seemed to do most of the talking.” “Anything about me?” I ask fearfully. I’m sure that if there was, it was bad. Johanna swallows and shifts her gaze to somewhere over my left shoulder.  There’s something she doesn’t want to tell me.  A stone lodges in my stomach and rises up into my throat.  “Katniss, I think it was all about you.  While he was talking, he was holding something in his hand, a necklace of some kind.  I found it by the phone after he hung up.  It was his token from the Quell.  The one he gave you.” The locket.  The locket with Prim, Gale, and my mother’s photos in it.  I had given it back to him months ago hoping that it might trigger some memories.  I rack my brain for what it could mean.  Why would he leave it discarded by the phone after saying those things about me?  At the very least, the locket was a symbol of the unity and trust between us.  It could mean only one thing.  He’s given up on me.  It’s over.  It’s really over.   “I see,” I say.  I wrap my arms tightly around myself in an effort to keep it together. “Is there anything else?” “No,” she answers, ‘but if there’s anything new, I’ll let you know.   I hope you don’t mind if I don’t accept your invitation to come stay with you.   I think it best if I remain with Peeta for the time being, in case he needs someone to talk to.  Someone he can trust.”   I flinch at the word “trust” but I know Johanna doesn’t mean anything by it.  I’m glad she’s staying with him, and that he has someone he can depend on. It’s almost certain that Peeta won’t look to me for anything anymore.   “Is the wedding still on?” I ask. Johanna shrugs.  “I think so.  He’d say something wouldn’t he?  If it was off? He’s still wearing her ring.”  Lace had given him a ring on their engagement.  It’s silver with a love knot.  Lace told him that it’s a symbol of love and devotion.  All I saw was another way to mark her territory.

“I didn’t think Peeta would break up with her over it,” I say.  “I knew he’d understand, if given the chance.” Johanna gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze before she makes her way back to Peeta’s house.  I linger a while at the door to compose myself before I face Marcus. He doesn’t need me breaking down again. I’ve already made a mess of one sweater. In the kitchen, Marcus is ladling soup into bowls.  He’s retrieved the cheese buns from the oven and set them on a plate in the center of the table.

“Johanna?” he asks. “Yes,” I say, hoping that that will suffice.

Marcus places a bowl of soup in front of me.  It’s thick and nourishing and smells delicious, but I have little appetite.  Nonetheless, I pick up my spoon and start eating.  I need to force myself to do the normal things.  I can’t let despondency over Peeta take control.  That’s a sure way to spiral into depression.   I take a cheese bun to dip into my soup and wonder if it will be the last of the Peeta-made cheese buns I’ll get to eat.   Did he ever remember how he first came to make them for me?  Probably not. “It’s unusual for her to call around mealtime and not stay to eat,” Marcus observes. “She just came to tell me how Peeta is,” I say. I don’t want to talk about Peeta, but Marcus merits some kind of explanation.  How could he not be curious after witnessing what he did last night, and then having to deal with the aftermath of a distraught female sobbing inconsolably against his chest?  “She didn’t want to stay away too long.  She’s worried about him.” ‘Oh.  And, how is he?” he asks, his expression unreadable.  

“Not great, by the sound of things,” I say.  “Johanna says he hasn’t said much.  Disillusioned with everyone, I guess.” “Well, naturally he would be.  With his fiancé.  I don’t understand why he took it out on everyone else, though,” he says. By everyone, I understand he means me. I was the only one Peeta attacked last night.

“It’s not his fault,” I hasten to say, feeling moved to rush to Peeta’s defense, whether it’s merited or not.  “You’re from the Capitol.  You don’t know what he went through after he was captured. “ “I think I have some idea,” says Marcus, with the first hint of irritation I’ve seen from him.  “It seems to be a common perception in the Districts that if you’re from the Capitol, you were somehow immune from Snow.  Well, we weren’t.   We all knew what happened to anyone reckless enough to speak out against him.  Most of the menial work in the library was done by Avoxes, you know.  I suppose Snow put them there as a joke. No one had to tell them to be quiet.  I doubt if the victims found it funny though. “  

“I didn’t mean – “I begin.   I want to tell him that what I meant was that you really had to see how Peeta was after the hijacking to understand him.  But Marcus continues as if I hadn’t spoken.  He seems determined to get this out. “The Games weren’t just mandatory viewing for the Districts either.  Maybe not in the way it was for you, with it being policed.  But if a neighbor found out, and reported that you weren’t as enthusiastic as you should be, well, people had a way of disappearing.  And I know the Games had its avid supporters, with their sponsorships, and betting, and making celebrities out of the winners.  But there was also many of us who hated them and wanted them gone.   But we were afraid.  Afraid of having our tongues cut out.  Or worse. So, for the most part, we kept quiet, pretended to go along with it, and went about our lives.  Which was very comfortable by most standards – even if the conscience pricked now and then.” Better them than us, I suppose.  Would people in the Districts have behaved any differently, if the positions were reversed?  I like to think so but honesty compels me to admit that we probably would have been exactly the same.   The Capitol was made up of all kinds of people. There were some who exploited the inequality and perhaps even believed we deserved it.  And there were those who simply accepted it as just the way of things, like my prep team.   And yet others like . . . I become aware that Marcus is watching me as if he expects some kind of condemnation and I remember one of our earlier conversations about how the Capitol viewed the Districts.  It dawns on me that there’s a lot of guilt carried by Marcus and others like him.  Maybe this is why he’s so intent on preserving all the forests across Panem when he could have chosen just to fight for the one in his own district.  It’s a way of making restitution, of ensuring a better Panem for the future.  The more I’ve got to know Marcus, the more this makes sense to me.  He’s not at ease in front of the cameras like Peeta.  He likes solitary pursuits like reading and hiking mountain trails, not giving interviews or appearing on television.  He’s had to stretch far out of his comfort zone to take on the public role he has.   I choose my words carefully.  “That’s how Snow operated.  It was the same here.  All of us too scared to move in case we made it worse for ourselves.   And he set people against each other to keep them apart.  I know there were people in the Capitol who sympathetic to the Districts. You remember my stylist, Cinna? He designed the wedding dress that turned me into a mockingjay.  They killed him for that, and he knew they would.  And there was the camera crew who filmed the propos for the rebellion.  One of them was an Avox.  I don’t know what offense he committed, but he was put to work in the sewers.  So, if this is about what Lace said last night, about people from the Capitol having no morals –“

“I don’t care what Lace thinks, but I do care what you think.” “Well, you don’t have to convince me.  I saw what the Capitol was capable of doing to its own citizens.  But you have to understand that most people in the Districts didn’t get to see that. They only saw how much you had of everything while we starved.  And then there was the Games, of course.  But when I said you wouldn’t understand about Peeta, I didn’t mean that because you were from the Capitol, you couldn’t know how cruel Snow was.    I meant you didn’t see what the hijacking did to him.  How it changed him.” “I saw him try to bash your head in with the butt of his gun and then kick the poor guy who tried to subdue him into a pod,” he replies, his face set hard.  “And then at Snow’s execution, when he attacked you again.” “No, no that’s not – “I start to say.  I have to restrain myself from putting my hands to my face and groaning.  Not Marcus too!    “I know how it would have looked on TV, but there’s more to it than that.”  I really can’t blame Marcus for what he thinks he knows, any more than I can blame Max. They only saw what the Capitol wanted them to see and there’s been nothing since – no counter-claims, no witness accounts – that could contradict the Capitol’s version of it.  One day someone is going to have to write a true account of what happened.  Someone who was actually there.   I think quickly, going back to that day when Boggs was killed.  We had taken refuge in a deserted apartment after a massive wave of black tar-like gel engulfed the streets.  Inside the apartment was a spiral staircase that led to a living room with plush furniture and a huge television that covered an entire wall.  Peeta was cuffed and unconscious and draped over one of the sofas and the rest of us were milling around, unsure of our next move, when suddenly the television came to life.  Cressida explained that it was an emergency broadcast that went to all the televisions across the Capitol.  Presumably it was also broadcast to the Districts if Max had seen it.  

The footage started just after the bomb that took off Bogg’s legs. Homes and I are seen tending to Boggs, huddled over him, our backs to the cameras.  Peeta stands to the side, watching, hopping from one foot to the other, clearly agitated.   Chaos erupts when a wall of thick black goo surges towards us.  Homes and I begin to drag Boggs to safety and he cries out in agony.   Then Peeta, in one swift movement, seizes me by the shoulders, yanks me backwards and I crash to the ground.  His gun is raised to smash into my skull, but I manage to roll in the nick of time, and the gun slams down onto the pavement.  Mitchell tackles Peeta to the ground, but Peeta gets his feet under him and catapults him further down the road, straight into the pod that kills him.  Other members of the squad rush in to restrain Peeta, and he threshes wildly in their grip like an animal caught in a trap.     It’s all very damning.  And it was played over and over, with close-ups of Peeta’s face, distorted with maniacal fury.  It was made even worse by the voice-over.  It described Peeta as a dangerous lunatic, so crazed with blood lust, that not even the girl he purports to love more than life itself is safe from him.   And then there’s Snow’s execution.  I don’t know what the media did with this, if anything.  I was in solitary confinement and I know nothing of the aftermath.  But I can imagine how it must have appeared to the audience.  The shock and disbelief when my arrow pierced Coin’s heart and she toppled lifeless to the ground.  The guards, stunned into inaction, were slow to react.  In those remaining seconds of freedom, I contemplated my future – torture, execution – and decided to end my life.   But the audience couldn’t have known what I was thinking.  Nor could they have known about the nightlock pill secreted in a small pocket on my sleeve.  What they do know is that Peeta hurled himself forward to seize me by the arm and of my attempts to wrest myself free by sinking my teeth into his hand, and struggling against him with all my might.   Could it have been in self- defense?  I can see how it might have been interpreted that way.   I put down my spoon.  I have a lot of clearing up to do.   But where to start . . . “They say the beginning is a good place,” says Marcus.   I didn’t realise I’d said it aloud.  But yes, the beginning.   The day Peeta tossed me two loaves of bread and took a beating for it. “So, you see, that ran so counter to his true self,” I say, as I come to the end.  “And he did in fact, save my life two more times after that . . . ah, incident with the gun.  And you also have to remember that he only did it because he thought someone was being harmed.” “Harmed by you, to be precise.  He didn’t attack the other guy,” he points out. “No, but it was me Peeta had been programmed to think of as a mutt and a danger to others.  Later he came to see it as false.  And, of course, Dr Aurelius wouldn’t have allowed him to be released if it wasn’t safe.   Afterall, he was only a threat to me and he knew Peeta intended to return to 12.”  As I speak, a terrible thought occurs to me. The way he spoke to me last night. Maybe he thought Lace was under attack, and I was responsible for it.  That without him being aware of it, he still thinks I’m a mutt.  It would explain a lot.  His distrust of me, his initial reluctance to regain memories of our past together, the guest room ban, the way he’s interpreted the way he has. It’s to keep me at a safe distance. As anyone would, with a treacherous mutt.  

“Why did he come back?  Was it to rekindle your relationship?” “Huh?”  The question startles me, bringing my attention abruptly back to our discussion.  I almost want to laugh.  The incongruity of Peeta wanting to make love to a mutt.   “I’m sorry.  It’s none of my business.  I shouldn’t have – “he begins.   “No, it’s OK,” I assure him.  It’s not unreasonable for him to ask.  I’ve been baring my soul about everything else.  I had even told him how I felt about Peeta – how confused I was in the beginning and how I gradually came to feel the same way for him as he did for me.   The difficulty though, is that I don’t really know why he did come back.   I thought I did, but I turned out to be so wrong.  The primrose bushes, coaxing me out of my depression with cheese buns and cozy breakfasts together, were overtures of friendship, not romantic interest. And I wasn’t the only one with expectations.  The public had too and it’s not so surprising considering how the star-crossed lovers was promoted.  No longer together?  Peeta in love with another? Unthinkable!  I see the speculative way people look at me when they learn that Peeta is with another girl now.  Some pityingly, others accusingly as if it’s something I did.  I don’t know what Peeta tells them, assuming they ask.  Possibly what he told Lace, that the star-crossed lovers had never been real and now we’re just good friends, as we were always meant to be.   “I’m not sure.  We’ve never had that conversation. But 12 is his home.  And his house is here. He thinks of Haymitch and me as family.  There’s a bond that forms between fellow Victors,” I say, with a shrug.

“How do you feel about him now?  Are you OK with how things turned out?”

He watches me closely, as if something important hinges on what answer I give.   I barely know myself how I feel about Peeta now.  I still love him; I know that much.  But my trust in him has eroded to the point where I don’t know if it exists anymore. As to being fine with how things turned out, the honest answer is a decided no.   But if I’m to start a new life, as I must, then certain things have to be left behind.   A new narrative, written my Katniss Everdeen herself is what’s needed. Not by someone who’s been compelled to bend to the wind most of her life.  The tragic tale of the star-crossed lovers was essentially written by Peeta.  I was merely swept along with it.  The same with the Mockingjay thing.  That was written by the public, and then by Coin and Plutarch.   But it’s time to stop.  From now on, I want to be my own author.  Besides, the fewer people who are aware of my private heartbreak the better.  Sympathy, although well-meaning, just makes it harder.  

“When Peeta came back, I had hopes,” I say carefully.   “He could have gone to any district but he chose 12.  And there wasn’t much here then.  Only the Village.  So, I thought, that maybe, he’d come because of me.  But it wasn’t the same.  Peeta wasn’t the same.  So, I was sad for a long while.  And it was hard, especially when he started going out with Lace.  But eventually I came to realize that you can’t recreate the past, no matter how much you might want to.   I’m glad now that Peeta’s found someone.  He deserves to be happy after everything he’s been through.  And I’m ready to move on with my life too.”    There, a mostly truthful account with a hope filled ending I intend to make true. 

He smiles at me then.  A warm, gentle smile.  “I’m glad to hear it.  Because happiness is what you deserve too.”