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lemonluvgirl · 2 years

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Complete One Shot*

Everlark Fairy Tale themed- For @jhsgf82 because she threw me a line and hooked me right in with it! You’re the best <3 Read the whole story also on Ao3.

The woods were forbidden, dark, and untrustworthy, but for a man like Peeta Mellark, who had nothing to lose, they were also his last hope.

The wasting sickness had swept through his small village in the span of a week. His village was the twelfth and smallest one in the land. The people in Twelve were also the poorest and had none such that could be called true doctors or healers in the town.

Peeta had watched as the sickness took mainly adults, anyone over 30 years of age. It spread from house to house, person to person, until there was hardly a healthy adult soul left in the district. Except for him.

When the Mayor of District 12 came knocking on the bakery door one morning, pale-faced and barely able to stand, Peeta was shocked. But he let the man in anyway and prepared some tea while he bade the Mayor to rest on one of the chairs in the kitchen.

“Peeta, you are the last able-bodied man left in the village,” the Mayor rasped in a thin, reedlike voice after sipping the tea from the cup that Peeta had to hold to his lips because the man was so weak, and getting weaker by the minute.

Peeta didn’t acknowledge the Mayor’s words, he simply bade the man to save his energy and his breath. Truly, he could not fathom what the Mayor was doing walking to the bakery, sick as he was during an epidemic.

“Peeta, listen to me. What has happened to the village, it's a curse. It has fallen on everyone that failed to keep their promises to care for the children of the miners who died in the mine collapse some 14 or so years ago.”

Peeta gave the mayor a sharp look then. He knew the accident the Mayor spoke of. It was the same one that caused the girl he loved, and her family, to waste away and starve. Peeta had even tried to give them bread a few times, but after his mother caught him burning the loaves purposefully, she beat him within an inch of his life, and he couldn’t get out of bed for weeks.

When he awoke, the girl with the dark hair and the silver eyes, the one who sang so sweetly the birds stopped to listen, was gone. Her mother was dead of starvation, and rather than let herself and her baby sister be carted off to the community home where they would no doubt be beaten, starved, and become the playthings for the older boys, the brave girl and her blond little doll of a sister had fled into the forest.

They chose a quick death at the hands of the monsters and mutts that lurked in the haunted forest's shadows rather than to die a little each day in the terrible community home.

The news had devastated him as a boy, and hearing the Mayor speak now about how he and the rest of the adults failed to prevent it, made Peeta furious.

But the years had also made him silent and introspective. As much as he hated the people around him who had turned a blind eye to his love’s plight, he hated himself more for not being strong enough, or big enough to stand up to his mother.

Perhaps that’s why over the years as Peeta’s kind and gentle words had lessened, his muscles and body had grown exponentially. He was now a bear of a man, standing at over six feet tall, with a chest as broad as an oak, and arms as strong as two twin oxen. He had stopped taking his mother’s insults years ago, and was known as a defender of the weak and helpless throughout the village. His father had passed the running of the town bakery on to him the day Peeta turned 25. He lived his life quietly, and solitarily, thinking of nothing but bread and lost opportunities.

“Please, Peeta, you’re the only one strong enough, and well enough to save the town,” the Mayor begged.

“I don’t see what you want me to do. I am no healer,” Peeta finally said, his voice rough and thick-sounding from lack of use.

“You must go to the forest and beg for mercy from the witch that lives there. She has a small cottage right in the heart of the woods, five miles in. You must start walking north from the Seam, take the route through the meadow. When you find her, ask her to lift the curse from our village. Tell her we will pay whatever sum she asks, make whatever amends she deems necessary. Just go today before the night falls,” the Mayor begged before a coughing fit overtook him.

Peeta shook his head, dismissing the mayor’s words as the ramblings of a fevered and guilty mind.

“Promise me, Peeta! On the head of every father and mother that may perish and leave this entire village full of orphans! Vow to me that you will go!”

“Mr. Snow, there are wild beasts in the woods,” Peeta argued quietly. Truthfully, he hated to deny a dying man his last request. But the woods were dangerous. Everyone knew that.

“The woods and all its creatures are under the command of the witch, and as her servants they will not harm an innocent. Just as the curse has not harmed any of the innocents in the town.”

“And what makes you think I am innocent?” Peeta asked skeptically.

“You’re alive and healthy, aren’t you, Mr. Mellark?” the Mayor countered.

Peeta couldn't argue with this, and more than anything, his heart beat with a wild hope. What kinds of things still live in the woods? he thought.

“I will go,” Peeta vowed, and with that, the Mayor relaxed back in the chair and fell into a slumber Peeta wasn’t sure he would ever wake up from.

Peeta packed a small sack, filled with water and provisions for a walk in the woods. He said goodbye to no one, as he had never married or taken up with a sweetheart after the day the girl with the silver eyes was lost to him. He was kindly with everyone, but his quiet nature was not conducive to friendship, and he cared not for his family. If he was eaten in the woods by some terrible animal, one of his brothers could take over the running of the bakery, which was the only thing of value Peeta counted in his life.

In truth, no one needed him. But if he could save even one child from the fate that befell his beloved when she lost her parents, Peeta knew he had to try.

So, he set out in the direction of the Seam. He took the path through the meadow, just as the mayor had advised.

When he got to the treeline, Peeta adjusted the sack over his shoulder and simply lumbered through.

His steps were loud and uncoordinated. The forest was eerily quiet and devoid of sound.

Peeta tried to keep an eye open for predators, and in fact, he thought he saw the yellow glow of hungry eyes from the corner of his vision, but oddly enough no creature ever came close to him.

In fact the very branches and brambles seemed to turn aside at the touch of his foot or knee, and yet Peeta still found himself lost. He wandered for hours, having lost his direction, and just when he had given up hope and thought to sit down on a log and have his last meal, he heard a voice.

A voice that sent a chill up his spine.

Are you, are you, coming to the tree?

Where they strung up a man they say who murdered three

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met, at midnight in the Hanging Tree

The voice seemed to float towards him, ghostlike and haunting in its beauty. Peeta was mesmerized. He knew this voice. It was the same as his lost love.

At the sound of her voice, the birds that had been so deadly silent suddenly took up the melody of her song, and Peeta marveled upon hearing them trilling and singing from every corner of the forest, like an echo.

It was glorious, and Peeta jumped up suddenly, chasing the echo of her voice, running as fast as his legs could carry him, until he came upon a clearing.

There was a great, beautiful lake, on which the sun beat down, striking the water and making it smile like a thousand jewels catching the noonday sun. Next to the lake was a small house that at first sight looked abandoned, but when Peeta looked closer, he saw that there was smoke from the half-crumbled chimney.

Peeta rushed forward, hoping against hope, and also terrified beyond all reason, that he had found the witch’s abode.

But before he had made it twelve steps, an arrow came whizzing towards him and buried itself in the dirt in front of his feet.

“Stop where you are. Throw down your weapons and declare yourself,” a voice from up high in a tree said. It was a woman’s voice, young by the sound of it.

Peeta looked up, trying to discern where the voice had come from, but then another arrow sank into the ground, this time decidedly closer to him, and right between his legs.

Peeta blanched, threw down his sack of goods, and held his hands up in surrender.

“‘Tis none but I, a simple baker, Mistress. I come seeking the Witch of the Woods on behalf of my village.”

“And what village is that?”

“The village of Twelve, madam.”

A glob of spit landed right on top of his shoe at the mention of Twelve.

“Twelve, you say? What would those sniveling cowards be doing sending an emissary out here? And a lowly baker at that?”

Peeta flushed crimson at her words, but tried not to take offense.

“I was the last man left hale and whole in the village, Mistress. The Mayor himself begged me to come seek the Witch of the Woods’ counsel to lift the curse that has befallen our village. Every man and woman over the age of 30 has taken ill; many have died, and more will follow unless I intercede on behalf of my people.”

“And what could you possibly have to offer the Witch of the Woods in exchange for lifting the curse on your wretched little village?” the girl said in a sneering voice.

“The Mayor made many promises of gold, goods, or whatever else the Witch may desire. But if none of that is sufficient, I come to offer myself as a sacrifice instead.”

“You? What game is this?”

“No game, Mistress. Just one man, willing to die in place of many. Those that are sick now, they are fathers and mothers. The town, and the town’s children, will suffer greatly if they die.”

“Maybe your town deserves to suffer greatly, Mister Baker. Did you ever think of that?”

“Maybe, good lady. It may be as you say. The Mayor himself told me that the curse had befallen the town because they failed in their duty. They did not help the families of those orphaned some years ago in a terrible accident. So, if there must be a recompense made, and someone must pay the price, then I am here to offer myself. If blood must be spilt, then let it be mine.”

“Foolish man! Did you not ask yourself why you did not fall ill with the others? Or why the wild creatures didn’t rip you limb from limb once you stepped foot inside their domain? It is because you are innocent, sir. Your life is worth a hundred of theirs, not the other way around. They don’t deserve your sacrifice.”

“It doesn't matter. I will still pay it. I want to see no more children orphaned. No more lonely, heartbroken little ones, if I can help it.”

At this the woman began to descend from the tree. Peeta caught glimpses of her between the tree branches and leaves.

She was young, and lithe. Dressed in buckskin and fur, wearing no shoes, with a bow and quiver strapped across her back. She also had a long dark rope of braided raven hair that fell below her waist.

The sight of her made his heart stutter in his chest.

“Is it you?” Peeta whispered right before she turned to face him.

Cold and sad gray eyes met his warm blue ones.

“Yes, I am the Witch of the Woods. I am the one you’re looking for, Baker. Who, by the way, are you?” the woman asked, narrowing her eyes at him and keeping her distance.

But Peeta couldn’t help taking a step towards her.

At this she reached back and grabbed her bow.

“Shoot me, if you must, but first answer me this question. Are you, or were you ever once called Katniss?” Peeta asked in a pleading voice, drawing nearer to her, unable to help himself.

She tensed and strung an arrow to deter him from coming closer, but the familiar glint of fire in her gray eyes entranced him, and he drew nearer, heedless of the danger.

“Stay where you are, sir!” The woman ordered, but her voice shook. She had not been this close to another living person in over a year. And she had not been in the presence of a member of the opposite sex in over a decade.

It made her nervous.

“All right, but only tell me if it's true. Tell me if you are the one I’ve been looking for!”

“Looking for? Sir, in all the years my sister and I lived in these woods, not another soul has ever sought us out. I am certain of this, for the woods are my domain and the trees tell me all of their secrets.”

“So it is you! Oh! What a miracle! They told me you and your entire family were dead! I cried myself to sleep for months! The only time I could see your face again was in dreams and when I sketched your likeness on scraps of torn bread bags. I looked for you every night in my dreams, Katniss! And now I have found you! I am so happy, you cannot know it! And your sister, dear Primrose, where is she?” Peeta asked, joy tumbling out of him as he looked around, casting his gaze to the small house to see where the small blond girl, who would be a young woman now, might be hiding.

But at this, the sky darkened, and birds stopped singing, and Katniss’ countenance grew stormy.

“Please do not speak that name in my presence,” she said in a warning tone.

“Why ever not, Katniss? Where is your sister?” Peeta asked, his brow furrowed and a feeling of dread settling in his gut.

“Mayhaps you should inquire after her burial plot instead of the girl herself. She died a year and a week ago today. All because of your town, sir. The one you claim to love so much that you would give your own life to save! They cast me and my sister out when they discovered my powers after our mother died. They forbade us to ever set foot in the village again. And last winter, when Prim pricked the sole of her foot on a rusty nail in the garden she was starting to till again, she could have been saved by one shot of medicine from the mayor’s house. None of the remedies from the forest worked on her. And the magic I have is not the healing kind, but the kind that breeds destruction. The Mayor had access to good Capitol medicine that he hoarded all the while my sister wasted away and died. I went to his back door to beg him to help us, but he turned me away, saying he could have no dealings with witches. The same at the apothecary. The same of every other door I knocked on that night. None would help us. My sister, my poor innocent sister, who never hurt a soul in this whole world, whom I loved more dearly than the heart beating in my own breast, was brought low by a nail. She died, sir. And it was entirely preventable!” The woman screamed at him, and Peeta felt hot tears spill over his eyes when he heard about the tragic death of her sister and the plight she endured to try and save her.

“Oh, Katniss,” Peeta said sadly, and her hands drew up her bow and arrow, the tip pointed right at his heart.

“Do not address me so familiarly, sir! You may call me Witch or Mistress. But I have not given you leave to call me by my given name!”

“As you will, Mistress. But my offer still stands. I am ready to die in place of those that have wronged you and your loved ones,” Peeta told her resolutely.

Katniss stared at him in astonishment.

“How? How can you still want to die for those vile, unworthy, wretched bastards?!” Katniss shrieked, and the whole woods shook with her anger.

Peeta cringed and looked around nervously as the branches of the trees nearest him lashed out and raked the back of his arms and calves.

“Because they are stupid, ignorant fools, blinded by their own fears and prejudice. They deserve to see the error of their ways, but not to die and leave their children fatherless. Can’t you see, Katniss?! If you do this, if you persist with this curse, then you will create a hundred little girls like you, and the pain will just keep going on. Prim would not want this. You know that.”

The next second an arrow flew directly at him, and pinned him to the tree behind him, by the collar of his shirt. Peeta gasped, looking down and seeing how close the arrow had come to his neck.

“I told you not to call me that, Peeta,” Katniss said, the very image of wild destruction and fury. She was beautiful, and terrifying to behold, her eyes full of fire and her bow drawn, while her luscious mouth was set into a grim line.

“I didn’t know you knew my name,” Peeta whispered. And if it was to be his last statement, at least it was an honest one.

“You never forget the face of the person who was your last hope.”

“Katniss, I tried to get you more bread, but my mother-”

“It’s alright Peeta. I know. Your father told me what she did to you for giving me the bread. I knew you tried your best. I never held it against you, that you couldn’t give us more. You saved Prim and me. It was too late for my mother, but that was her fault, not yours. Just as this curse is not your fault either. That’s why I’m letting you go,” she said as she came close to him and lifted her knife. Peeta closed his eyes, hoping she would kill him fast, but instead of cold metal on his skin he felt the soft, warm touch of her hand as she gingerly dug the arrow point out of the tree and freed his shirt from the wood.

“But what about the village?”

“They will suffer the consequences for robbing me of my family. But I will not punish you, nor any other innocent in their stead.”

“Please, Katniss. I can’t go back and watch them all die. I’ll never be able to bear it!”

“It's not your job to save them, Peeta! They should have known better! They should have had compassion, and acted like decent human beings!”

“Please, what will it take to get you to lift the curse? Tell me, and I will do it,” Peeta begged, but Katniss pushed him away.

“You cannot give me what I want. I want my family back. My father not to have perished in those unsafe mines. My mother not to have languished in despair over him and succumbed to her own grief. My sister and I not to have been overlooked, staved, and banished, left to die by our neighbors and friends. Not once, but twice! Can you give me back all that I have lost, Peeta? Can you return the dead to me? If so, then we can strike the bargain here and now, and I’ll lift the curse from the town within the hour.”

Peeta looked at her for a moment, and Katniss rolled her eyes slightly in the silence as she waited for his answer.

“I cannot return your dead to you, this you know, Katniss, but there is something else I can offer,” Peeta began quietly.

“There is nothing you can offer me in consolation for what they have stolen, Peeta-”

“I offer myself, in marriage.”

“WHAT?” Katniss shrieked in surprise.

“If what you say is true, and you seek a family to replace the one you lost-”

“You are MAD!”

“I know I am not much. In fact, I have nothing to offer you besides the fact that I am young and healthy, and reasonably strong. I could give you children, as many as you wanted. My brothers all have large broods of their own, in fact; it's reasonable to assume I could do the same. And I would love you more than my own heart. I would spend the rest of my life trying to ease your pain. I could bake for you, and keep house while you hunted and spent time in the woods. And our children could fill the empty place in your heart. All this, I would do, and whatever else you asked of me, gladly,” he told her, and she shook her head, because she could not believe he wanted her.

“P-Peeta--”

“Please, I have loved you since I was a boy. I never took a wife because you owned every inch of my heart. If you let me, I will do my best to make you happy. Even though I could never replace your sweet sister or parents-”

“PEETA!” Katniss yelled, catching his attention.

“Yes?” he asked in a quiet voice, bracing for her rejection.

“Why would you ever want to marry me? I’m a witch, and a half-feral thing, besides. You could never return to town, or your family. You’d have to live here in the wilderness for the rest of your life with only my quarrelsome self to keep you company, and-”

“You’re all I would need. And no one else would miss me. You and our family would be all I ever required to be the happiest man in the world, or if you think me too presumptuous to wed one as beautiful and amazing as yourself, then I could simply be your companion. Someone to talk to and ease the loneliness.”

“You’re still young, Peeta. There’s still time for you to marry a nice, normal girl and settle down. Fill the bakery with your own brood.”

“I resolved years ago to never have children unless they would be mothered by you.”

Katniss’ mind boggled at his words, and her eyes grew overlarge.

“You are exasperating; you are aware of that, aren’t you?” she asked him in an incredulous voice.

Peeta gave her a bashful, crooked grin that set her heart aflutter.

“Oh, yes. My mother said it was one of my worst traits. Although, I don’t know which ones, if any, were preferable. She never said one word about my virtues, only my weaknesses.”

“Your mother was a blind fool, and more of a witch than I will ever be.”

“That, we can agree on, at least.”

“Peeta, don’t throw your lot in with mine. You deserve more than this lonely existence.”

“Katniss, I lost you once, and it was like the light went out of my life. Finding you again, it is like a gift. This lonely existence as you call it would be paradise for me. Besides, I made my choice that day in the rain with the bread. I would pay any price to keep you safe, and make you smile,” he said, coming closer, cupping her cheek in the tenderest manner possible. There was something in it, in the way he looked at her that reminded her of her father and the love and care he had always shown her mother while they were both alive.

And in that instant, Katniss felt it. Hope. That she could have a family again, and love in her life.

Slowly, carefully, she brought her hand up to cover the large, warm one that caressed her cheek.

“Okay,” she said, after looking into his bright and hopeful blue eyes, “I’ll allow it.”

Epilogue

(5 years later)

The time of the wasting sickness passed as quickly as it came on, with only a few casualties. Mayor Snow being one of them. The town didn’t mourn too long over those that passed and instead focused all their efforts on memorializing the memory of the brave and strong baker who was thought to have set off to conquer the Witch of the Woods at the peril of losing his own life. Peeta Mellark never set foot in the town again, but for years after, those brave enough to skirt the line between the forest and the village sometimes swore they heard his joyful, booming guffaw, always accompanied by a tinkling laughter so musical it was often mistaken for birdsong.

Many thought his spirit still lingered in the woods, protecting the town from the wild creatures that always kept to the woods and never ventured into town.

The only ones who knew the truth were the Witch and her Baker.

They began their friendship the day Peeta forsook the rest of the world and vowed to live forever by his love’s side, as a replacement family member and companion, and eventually as her lover and husband. Katniss’ love for Peeta came in time, and even though it took years for her to return his feelings, Peeta never swayed from his resolution to be her steadiness in times of trouble and loneliness.

On the days she missed her sister and parents, Peeta’s strong arms were there to comfort her, and eventually his lips, too. They fell in love like the beginning of a blushing spring that signaled the end to winter’s frost. The seed of their connection awoke like a kernel in the thawing ground and soon, the forest was not the only thing teeming with new life.

They had two children, a daughter and a son, to their great joy, and wanted for nothing. Between Peeta and herself, they kept their children fed, loved, and happy.

On the five-year anniversary of the day Peeta walked into the woods, a message was delivered in the form of a letter tucked into a basket full of trinkets and offerings. The creatures of the forest brought the basket to the little house by the lake, and Katniss retrieved it from them.

The note said the basket was a show of gratitude for the spirit that protected the village from the woods, and saved their town. In short, it was an offering for Peeta’s ghost.

Katniss snorted and handed the note to her husband, who blushed as he read the eloquent and quite exaggerated description of his heroism.

“They got it completely wrong,” he told his wife as he handed the note back to her and bent down to inspect the different types of finely-grained flour he was already eyeing thoughtfully, planning on how best to use them to bake his family a nice dinner.

“Of course they did! Aren’t you the one that said they were stupid, ignorant fools?” Katniss told him with a little laugh.

“That sounds harsh. Are you sure I said that?” Peeta asked doubtfully.

Katniss snorted in a cute fashion and rolled her eyes before beckoning Peeta to follow her with a wave of her hand. Their children were already safely tucked into their hammocks at home, being rocked by an enchanted apple tree that grew by their bedroom window.

Katniss took hold of her husband’s hand and gave him a playful wink.

“Let's go for a walk in the woods and find a pretty little spot where I can violate you,” she told him in a husky voice.

Peeta chuckled heartily and gave her one of his crooked smiles.

“I’ll allow it,” he replied.

The End.

#everlark #dark themes #fairy tale #dark fairy tale vibes #witch!katniss #magical woods #creepy woods #thg #fanfiction #lemonluvwrites

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