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katnissmellarkkk · 11 months

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AN : for the anon that requested it, here’s a bookcomb of Katniss and her mother’s relationship throughout the series! It’s way longer than I thought it would be so I attached a read more but I like to be thorough with these things 🥰🥰🥰.

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol.

My father got to know my mother because on his hunts he would sometimes collect medicinal herbs and sell them to her shop to be brewed into remedies. She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Seam. I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father’s sake. But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type.

A tub of warm water waits for me. I scrub off the dirt and sweat from the woods and even wash my hair. To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes.

“Are you sure?” I ask. I’m trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn’t allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her clothes from her past are very precious to her.

“Of course. Let’s put your hair up, too,” she says. I let her towel-dry it and braid it up on my head.

I was terrified. I suppose now that my mother was locked in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well. At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, I took over as head of the family. There was no choice. I bought our food at the market and cooked it as best I could and tried to keep Prim and myself looking presentable.

My sister and my mother come first. I reach out to Prim and she climbs on my lap, her arms around my neck, head on my shoulder, just like she did when she was a toddler. My mother sits beside me and wraps her arms around us. For a few minutes, we say nothing. Then I start telling them all the things they must remember to do, now that I will not be there to do them for them.

“You can’t leave again,” I say.

My mother’s eyes find the floor. “I know. I won’t. I couldn’t help what—”

“Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” My voice has risen to a shout. In it is all the anger, all the fear I felt at her abandonment.

She pulls her arm from my grasp, moved to anger herself now. “I was ill. I could have treated myself if I’d had the medicine I have now.”

That part about her being ill might be true. I’ve seen her bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since. Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford.

“Then take it. And take care of her!” I say.

And then the Peacekeeper is at the door, signaling our time is up, and we’re all hugging one another so hard it hurts and all I’m saying is “I love you. I love you both.” And they’re saying it back and then the Peacekeeper orders them out and the door closes. I bury my head in one of the velvet pillows as if this can block the whole thing out.

The pair last year were two kids from the Seam who’d never, not one day of their lives, had enough to eat. And when they did have food, table manners were surely the last thing on their minds. Peeta’s a baker’s son. My mother taught Prim and I to eat properly, so yes, I can handle a fork and knife. But I hate Effie Trinket’s comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my fingers. Then I wipe my hands on the tablecloth. This makes her purse her lips tightly together.

Slowly, my mother returned to us. She began to clean and cook and preserve some of the food I brought in for winter. People traded us or paid money for her medical remedies. One day, I heard her singing.

Prim was thrilled to have her back, but I kept watching, waiting for her to disappear on us again. I didn’t trust her. And some small gnarled place inside me hated her for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put us through. Prim forgave her, but I had taken a step back from my mother, put up a wall to protect myself from needing her, and nothing was ever the same between us again.

Now I was going to die without that ever being set right.

I thought of how I had yelled at her today in the Justice Building. I had told her I loved her, too, though. So maybe it would all balance out.

I take a sip of the hot, sweet, creamy liquid and a shudder runs through me. Even though the rest of the meal beckons, I ignore it until I’ve drained my cup. Then I stuff down every mouthful I can hold, which is a substantial amount, being careful to not overdo it on the richest stuff. One time, my mother told me that I always eat like I’ll never see food again. And I said, “I won’t unless I bring it home.” That shut her up.

Instead my hands go to my hairdo, the one area of my body my prep team had been told to leave alone. My fingers stroke the silky braids my mother so carefully arranged. My mother. I left her blue dress and shoes on the floor of my train car, never thinking about retrieving them, of trying to hold on to a piece of her, of home. Now I wish I had.

The sound of rain drumming on the roof of our house gently pulls me toward consciousness. I fight to return to sleep though, wrapped in a warm cocoon of blankets, safe at home. I’m vaguely aware that my head aches. Possibly I have the flu and this is why I’m allowed to stay in bed, even though I can tell I’ve been asleep a long time. My mother’s hand strokes my cheek and I don’t push it away as I would in wakefulness, never wanting her to know how much I crave that gentle touch. How much I miss her even though I still don’t trust her. Then there’s a voice, the wrong voice, not my mother’s, and I’m scared.

“Katniss,” it says. “Katniss, can you hear me?”

My eyes open and the sense of security vanishes. I’m not home, not with my mother.

By this time Gale will have clocked in at the mines, taken the stomach-churning elevator ride into the depths of the earth, and be pounding away at a coal seam. I know what it's like down there. Every year in school, as part of our training, my class had to tour the mines. When I was little, it was just unpleasant. The claustrophobic tunnels, foul air, suffocating darkness on all sides. But after my father and several other miners were killed in an explosion, I could barely force myself onto the elevator. The annual trip became an enormous source of anxiety. Twice I made myself so sick in anticipation of it that my mother kept me home because she thought I had contracted the flu.

“Someone's here to see you,” says my mother. Her face is too pale and I can hear the anxiety she's trying to hide.

“I thought they weren't due until noon.” I pretend not to notice her state. “Did Cinna come early to help me get ready?”

“No, Katniss, it's —” my mother begins.

“This way, please, Miss Everdeen,” says the man. He gestures down the hallway. It's weird to be ushered around your own home, but I know better than to comment on it.

As I go, I give my mother a reassuring smile over my shoulder. “Probably more instructions for the tour.”

I hear my mother's light, quick tread in the hall. She can't know, I think. Not about any of this. I reach my hands over the tray and quickly brush the bits of cookie from my palm and fingers. I take a shaky sip of my tea.

“Is everything all right, Katniss?” she asks.

“It's fine. We never see it on television, but the president always visits the victors before the tour to wish them luck,” I say brightly.

My mother's face floods with relief. “Oh. I thought there was some kind of trouble.”

“No, not at all,” I say. “The trouble will start when my prep team sees how I've let my eyebrows grow back in.” My mother laughs, and I think about how there was no going back after I took over caring for the family when I was eleven. How I will always have to protect her.

“Why don't I start your bath?” she asks.

“Great,” I say, and I can see how pleased she is by my response.

Since I've been home I've been trying hard to mend my relationship with my mother. Asking her to do things for me instead of brushing aside any offer of help, as I did for years out of anger. Letting her handle all the money I won. Returning her hugs instead of tolerating them. My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn't help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father's death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.

Besides, there's one wonderful thing she did when I arrived back in the district. After our families and friends had greeted Peeta and me at the train station, there were a few questions allowed from reporters. Someone asked my mother what she thought of my new boyfriend, and she replied that, while Peeta was the very model of what a young man should be, I wasn't old enough to have any boyfriend at all. She followed this with a pointed look at Peeta. There was a lot of laughter and comments like “Somebody's in trouble” from the press, and Peeta dropped my hand and sidestepped away from me. That didn't last long—there was too much pressure to act otherwise—but it gave us an excuse to be a little more reserved than we'd been in the Capitol. And maybe it can help account for how little I've been seen in Peeta's company since the cameras left.

I slide down into the water, letting it block out the sounds around me. I wish the tub would expand so I could go swimming, like I used to on hot summer Sundays in the woods with my father. Those days were a special treat. We would leave early in the morning and hike farther into the woods than usual to a small lake he'd found while hunting. I don't even remember learning to swim, I was so young when he taught me. I just remember diving, turning somersaults, and paddling around. The muddy bottom of the lake beneath my toes. The smell of blossoms and greenery. Floating on my back, as I am now, staring at the blue sky while the chatter of the woods was muted by the water. He'd bag the waterfowl that nested around the shore, I'd hunt for eggs in the grasses, and we'd both dig for katniss roots, the plant for which he named me, in the shallows. At night, when we got home, my mother would pretend not to recognize me because I was so clean. Then she'd cook up an amazing dinner of roasted duck and baked katniss tubers with gravy.

My mother comes in, somewhat shyly, and says that Cinna has asked her to show the preps how she did my hair the day of the reaping. They respond with enthusiasm and then watch, thoroughly engrossed, as she breaks down the process of the elaborate braided hairdo. In the mirror, I can see their earnest faces following her every move, their eagerness when it is their turn to try a step. In fact, all three are so readily respectful and nice to my mother that I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them.

I can see him swallowing his disappointment. “So, we'll go. We'll find out.” He turns back to the fire, where the chestnuts are beginning to burn. He flips them out onto the hearth. “My mother's going to take some convincing.”

I guess he's still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place. “Mine, too. I'll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won't survive the alternative.”

“She'll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won't say no to you,” says Gale.

I'm filled with awe, as I always am, as I watch her transform from a woman who calls me to kill a spider to a woman immune to fear. When a sick or dying person is brought to her ... this is the only time I think my mother knows who she is. In moments, the long kitchen table has been cleared, a sterile white cloth spread across it, and Gale hoisted onto it. My mother pours water from a kettle into a basin while ordering Prim to pull a series of her remedies from the medicine cabinet. Dried herbs and tinctures and store-bought bottles. I watch her hands, the long, tapered fingers crumbling this, adding drops of that, into the basin. Soaking a cloth in the hot liquid as she gives Prim instructions to prepare a second brew.

My mother glances my way. “Did it cut your eye?”

“No, it's just swelled shut,” I say.

“Get more snow on it,” she instructs. But I am clearly not a priority.

[…]

I can't remember a time before Cray, a time when there was a Head Peacekeeper who used the whip freely. But my mother must have been around my age and still working at the apothecary shop with her parents. Even back then, she must have had healer's hands.

Ever so gently, she begins to clean the mutilated flesh on Gale's back. I feel sick to my stomach, useless, the remaining snow dripping from my glove into a puddle on the floor. Peeta puts me in a chair and holds a cloth filled with fresh snow to my cheek.

[…]

Hazelle arrives, breathless and flushed, fresh snow in her hair. Wordlessly, she sits on a stool next to the table, takes Gale's hand, and holds it against her lips. My mother doesn't acknowledge even her. She's gone into that special zone that includes only herself and the patient and occasionally Prim. The rest of us can wait.

[…]

As the final bandages are being placed, a moan escapes his lips. Hazelle strokes his hair and whispers something while my mother and Prim go through their meager store of painkillers, the kind usually accessible only to doctors. They are hard to come by, expensive, and always in demand. My mother has to save the strongest for the worst pain, but what is the worst pain? To me, it's always the pain that is present. If I were in charge, those painkillers would be gone in a day because I have so little ability to watch suffering. My mother tries to save them for those who are actually in the process of dying, to ease them out of the world.

Since Gale is regaining consciousness, they decide on an herbal concoction he can take by mouth. “That won't be enough,” I say. They stare at me. “That won't be enough, I know how it feels. That will barely knock out a headache.”

“We'll combine it with sleep syrup, Katniss, and he'll manage it. The herbs are more for the inflammation—” my mother begins calmly.

“Just give him the medicine!” I scream at her. “Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!”

Gale begins stirring at my voice, trying to reach me. The movement causes fresh blood to stain his bandages and an agonized sound to come from his mouth.

“Take her out,” says my mother. Haymitch and Peeta literally carry me from the room while I shout obscenities at her. They pin me down on a bed in one of the extra bedrooms until I stop fighting.

After a while, my mother comes in and treats my face. Then she holds my hand, stroking my arm, while Haymitch fills her in on what happened with Gale.

Now that Gale has drifted away on the painkiller, everyone seems to deflate. Prim makes us each eat some stew and bread. A room is offered to Hazelle, but she has to go home to the other kids. Haymitch and Peeta are both willing to stay, but my mother sends them home to bed as well. She knows it's pointless to try this with me and leaves me to tend Gale while she and Prim rest.

She fills a handkerchief with the snow-coat mixture and I hold it to the weal on my cheek. Instantly the pain withdraws. It's the coldness of the snow, yes, but whatever mix of herbal juices my mother has added numbs as well. “Oh. That's wonderful. Why didn't you put this on him last night?”

“I needed the wound to set first,” she says.

I don't know what that means exactly, but as long as it works, who am I to question her? She knows what she's doing, my mother. I feel a pang of remorse about yesterday, the awful things I yelled at her as Peeta and Haymitch dragged me from the kitchen. “I'm sorry. About screaming at you yesterday.”

“I've heard worse,” she says. “You've seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain.”

My mother eases off my boots. “What happened?”

“I slipped and fell,” I say. Four pairs of eyes look at me with disbelief. “On some ice.” But we all know the house must be bugged and it's not safe to talk openly. Not here, not now.

Having stripped off my sock, my mother's fingers probe the bones in my left heel and I wince. “There might be a break,” she says. She checks the other foot. “This one seems all right.” She judges my tailbone to be badly bruised.

Prim's dispatched to get my pajamas and robe. When I'm changed, my mother makes a snow pack for my left heel and props it up on a hassock. I eat three bowls of stew and half a loaf of bread while the others dine at the table.

My mother gives me a cup of chamomile tea with a dose of sleep syrup, and my eyelids begin to droop immediately. She wraps my bad foot, and Peeta volunteers to get me to bed. I start out by leaning on his shoulder, but I'm so wobbly he just scoops me up and carries me upstairs.

My mother lets me sleep until noon, then rouses me to examine my heel. I'm ordered to a week of bed rest and I don't object because I feel so lousy. Not just my heel and my tailbone. My whole body aches with exhaustion. So I let my mother doctor me and feed me breakfast in bed and tuck another quilt around me. Then I just lie there, staring out my window at the winter sky, pondering how on earth this will all turn out.

Downstairs, the living room has been cleared and lit for the photo shoot. Effie's having a fine time ordering everybody around, keeping us all on schedule. It's probably a good thing, because there are six gowns and each one requires its own headpiece, shoes, jewelry, hair, makeup, setting, and lighting. Creamy lace and pink roses and ringlets. Ivory satin and gold tattoos and greenery. A sheath of diamonds and jeweled veil and moonlight. Heavy white silk and sleeves that fall from my wrist to the floor, and pearls. The moment one shot has been approved, we move right into preparing for the next. I feel like dough, being kneaded and reshaped again and again. My mother manages to feed me bits of food and sips of tea while they work on me, but by the time the shoot is over, I'm starving and exhausted. I'm hoping to spend some time with Cinna now, but Effie whisks everybody out the door and I have to make do with the promise of a phone call.

I turn on the shower and stand under the warm rain for a minute before I realize I'm still in my underclothes. My mother must have just stripped off my filthy outer ones and tucked me in bed. I throw the wet undergarments into the sink and pour shampoo on my head. My hands sting, and that's when I notice the stitches, small and even, across one palm and up the side of the other hand. Vaguely I remember breaking that glass window last night.

The footsteps on the stairs renew my panic from last night. I'm not ready to see my mother and Prim. I have to pull myself together to be calm and reassuring, the way I was when we said our good-byes the day of the last reaping. I have to be strong. I struggle into an upright position, push my wet hair off my throbbing temples, and brace myself for this meeting. They appear in the doorway, holding tea and toast, their faces filled with concern. I open my mouth, planning to start off with some kind of joke, and burst into tears.

So much for being strong.

My mother sits on the side of the bed and Prim crawls right up next to me and they hold me, making quiet soothing sounds, until I am mostly cried out. Then Prim gets a towel and dries my hair, combing out the knots, while my mother coaxes tea and toast into me. They dress me in warm pajamas and layer more blankets on me and I drift off again.

In the hospital, I find my mother, the only one I trust to care for them. It takes her a minute to place the three, given their current condition, but already she wears a look of consternation. And I know it's not a result of seeing abused bodies, because they were her daily fare in District 12, but the realization that this sort of thing goes on in 13 as well.

Gale squats down beside me, shaking his head. "I can't believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door."

"Shut up," I say with a laugh.

"Your mother's going to be very proud when she sees the footage," he says.

"My mother won't even notice me. She'll be too appalled by the conditions in there."

When I wake up, I'm warm and patched up in my old bed in the hospital. My mother's there, checking my vital signs. "How do you feel?"

"A little beat-up, but all right," I say.

"No one even told us you were going until you were gone," she says.

I feel a pang of guilt. When your family's had to send you off twice to the Hunger Games, this isn't the kind of detail you should overlook. "I'm sorry. They weren't expecting the attack. I was just supposed to be visiting the patients," I explain. "Next time, I'll have them clear it with you."

"Katniss, no one clears anything with me," she says.

It's true. Even I don't. Not since my father died. Why pretend? "Well, I'll have them...notify you anyway."

At the last moment, I remember to send a message to my mother about my leaving 13, and stress that it won't be dangerous.

The birds are waiting for me to continue. But that's it. Last verse. In the stillness I remember the scene. I was home from a day in the woods with my father. Sitting on the floor with Prim, who was just a toddler, singing "The Hanging Tree." Making us necklaces out of scraps of old rope like it said in the song, not knowing the real meaning of the words. The tune was simple and easy to harmonize to, though, and back then I could memorize almost anything set to music after a round or two. Suddenly, my mother snatched the rope necklaces away and was yelling at my father. I started to cry because my mother never yelled, and then Prim was wailing and I ran outside to hide. As I had exactly one hiding spot--in the Meadow under a honeysuckle bush--my father found me immediately. He calmed me down and told me everything was fine, only we'd better not sing that song anymore. My mother just wanted me to forget it. So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

I guess my mother thought the whole thing was too twisted for a seven-year-old, though. Especially one who made her own rope necklaces. It wasn't like hanging was something that only happened in a story. Plenty of people were executed that way in 12. You can bet she didn't want me singing it in front of my music class. She probably wouldn't like me doing it here for Pollux even, but at least I'm not--wait, no, I'm wrong. As I glance sideways, I see Castor has been taping me.

My mother wraps her arms around us. I allow myself to feel young for a moment and rest my head on her shoulder.

A soldier alerts my mother that she's needed in the first-aid station. She's reluctant to leave us, even though she'll only be thirty yards away.

"We'll be fine, really," I tell her. "Do you think anything could get past him?" I point to Buttercup, who gives me such a halfhearted hiss, we all have to laugh a little. Even I feel sorry for him.

Plutarch ushers the doctors out and tries to order Prim to go as well, but she says, "No. If you force me to leave, I'll go directly to surgery and tell my mother everything that's happened. And I warn you, she doesn't think much of a Gamemaker calling the shots on Katniss's life. Especially when you've taken such poor care of her."

My mother and Prim take turns nursing me, coaxing me to swallow bites of soft food. People come in periodically to give me updates on Peeta's condition. The high levels of tracker jacker venom are working their way out of his body. He's being treated only by strangers, natives of 13--no one from home or the Capitol has been allowed to see him--to keep any dangerous memories from triggering.

On the day my father died, the sirens went off during my school lunch. No one waited for dismissal, or was expected to. The response to a mine accident was something outside the control of even the Capitol. I ran to Prim's class. […] We found our mother clenching the rope that had been hastily strung to keep the crowd back. In retrospect, I guess I should have known there was a problem right then. Because why were we looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?

The morning we ship out, I say good-bye to my family. I haven't told them how much the Capitol's defenses mirror the weapons in the arena, but my going off to war is awful enough on its own. My mother holds me tightly for a long time. I feel tears on her cheek, something she suppressed when I was slated for the Games. "Don't worry. I'll be perfectly safe. I'm not even a real soldier. Just one of Plutarch's televised puppets," I reassure her.

The rest of the squad has gathered in a protective formation around the crew and us. Finnick's attempting to revive Messalla, who was thrown into a wall by the explosion. Jackson's barking into a field communicator, trying unsuccessfully to alert the camp to send medics, but I know it's too late. As a child, watching my mother work, I learned that once a pool of blood has reached a certain size, there's no going back.

Foam. I really am floating on foam. I can feel it beneath the tips of my fingers, cradling parts of my naked body. There's much pain but there's also something like reality. The sandpaper of my throat. The smell of burn medicine from the first arena. The sound of my mother's voice. These things frighten me, and I try to return to the deep to make sense of them. But there's no going back. Gradually, I'm forced to accept who I am. A badly burned girl with no wings. With no fire. And no sister.

When my tender skin has toughened enough to withstand the pressure of sheets, more visitors arrive. The morphling opens the door to the dead and alive alike. Haymitch, yellow and unsmiling. Cinna, stitching a new wedding dress. Delly, prattling on about the niceness of people. My father sings all four stanzas of "The Hanging Tree" and reminds me that my mother--who sleeps in a chair between shifts--isn't to know about it.

On my family: My mother buries her grief in her work.

Having no work, grief buries me. All that keeps me going is Coin's promise. That I can kill Snow. And when that's done, nothing will be left.

Eventually, I'm released from the hospital and given a room in the president's mansion to share with my mother. She's almost never there, taking her meals and sleeping at work. It falls to Haymitch to check on me, make sure I'm eating and using my medicines. It's not an easy job.

As the gray uniforms begin to converge on me, I think of what my brief future as the assassin of Panem's new president holds. The interrogation, probable torture, certain public execution. Having, yet again, to say my final goodbyes to the handful of people who still maintain a hold on my heart. The prospect of facing my mother, who will now be entirely alone in the world, decides it.

Haymitch hasn't assassinated anyone. He could go anywhere. If he's coming back to 12, it's because he's been ordered to. "You have to look after me, don't you? As my mentor?" He shrugs. Then I realize what it means. "My mother's not coming back."

"No," he says. He pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. I examine the delicate, perfectly formed writing. "She's helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we get in." My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. "You know why she can't come back." Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me.

In the morning, he sits stoically as I clean the cuts, but digging the thorn from his paw brings on a round of those kitten mews. We both end up crying again, only this time we comfort each other. On the strength of this, I open the letter Haymitch gave me from my mother, dial the phone number, and weep with her as well.

#thg #hunger games #Katniss everdeen #mommy issues #bookcomb ♥️🔎#mrs Everdeen

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the-al-chemist · 9 months

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The Beginning of a Symphony - Chapter 39

A/N: We are coming to the end of this journey, but before they go, each of the main characters has one last farewell chapter. First is Ethel, with my favourite chapter of this whole story. It’s dedicated to my beloved @lifeofkaze, with love.

Warnings: All the emotions. No, really. In an Ethel chapter. I know.

OCs featured/mentioned: Selene Fraser @lifeofkaze

June 1897

The Gryffindor Common Room was hosting the most raucous party that Ethel had ever known it to host in all the years she had been at school, and with good reason: Gryffindor had just won the Quidditch Cup.

It had been a fiercely fought game, with both sides having high stakes in the match; the Hufflepuff team were desperate to keep their title as champions, and the Gryffindors were determined to steal that title from them. For Ethel more than anyone, this was personal. She had sworn blind to Lysander Mercury the year before that she and her team would beat him and his, and finally, she had made good on that promise.

She should have been delighted, but she was not. Naturally, she was happy to have been victorious and to have bested Lysander, but even so, she could not help but feel hollow somehow. It was for that reason that she left the celebrations in the Common Room and retired early to her bedchamber.

She had barely finished donning her nightrobes when the door opened and she was joined by Selene, who looked at her as if concerned.

“Are you quite well, Effy?” she asked.

“Yes. Just tired from the excitement, I think,” Ethel replied. “You need not worry on my account. And you need not miss out on the party, either. You can attend without my being there.”

But Selene shook her head. “There’s no party worth attending if you are not also in attendance.”

She changed into her nightrobes and unbraided her hair, before climbing not into her own bed, but Ethel’s. They sat propped against the pillows, with Selene’s head resting on Ethel’s shoulder, and Ethel’s resting on Selene’s crown.

“In truth, Effy, I also feel too tired to attend the party.”

“You do?”

“Yes. It do not know why, but I have not felt like celebrating all evening. I should be ecstatic, but I feel a little empty. Is that not strange?”

“It is rather strange, and yet I feel the same way,” Ethel frowned. “I wonder why that is.”

“I do not know. I suppose we shall have plenty of time to find out.”

“We shall indeed. After all, it’s not like there will not be other victory parties to attend in the future.”

Selene sighed heavily, but she smiled. “Yes, I suppose we are bound to attend many victory parties when we both join the Chudley Cannons.”

Ethel returned Selene’s smile, but her words made her feel even worse than she already did. Now, she did not just feel deflated, she felt guilty as well.

“Selly, my dear, I… I am afraid that I have a confession to make,” she said. Selene lifted her head from her shoulder and frowned, and Ethel sat up a little straighter. “I fear that perhaps I no longer wish to be a Quidditch player when I grow up. I am sorry. I know that it has always been our dream to play for the Cannons together, but-”

“Effy, no!”

“It is true, Selene. Will you ever forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive.” Selene was also sitting up straight, facing Ethel. She did not look upset or angry, but hopeful. “I have also had doubts as to whether my dreams have changed. I was worried that you might never forgive me!”

“There is nothing you could ever do that I would not forgive,” Ethel told her. “So, pray tell, what might your new dream be?”

“I am not certain, but I know that it must be a dream we both can share,” said Selene. “I have been spending a great deal of time with Eliot Gerard of late, and it is his dream to be a travelling Healer.”

“I do not think that Healing should be our new dream.”

“No, me neither, but he has told me such wonderful stories of the mysteries and miracles of the world, and I would like for nothing more than to see and experience those for myself. I have been cooped up in my parents’ house for so many years, it is time that I saw everything else the world has to offer.”

“And we shall see to it that you are able to do precisely this.” Ethel nodded. “We shall travel together, and while we do so, we shall study and practice law.”

“Law?”

“Yes, Selly. While you have been listening to Eliot Gerard’s stories, I have been reading and reading and reading about the subject. I have discovered so much, and so much that I wish to change. By studying and practising law, we could be the ones to change that.”

“Oh, yes! That we could definitely do!”

“Oh, we shall see so much and do so much good. One day, we may even be able to be in the Wizengamot, or be Ministers for Magic! Wouldn’t that be superb?”

“It would,” Selene agreed, but the smile had slipped from her face. “But, Effy, how would we join the Wizengamot or be Ministers for Magic if we are travelling the world? We cannot change the laws of this country if we are always away visiting other places.”

That gave Ethel pause. She frowned, considering Selene’s words. She was right, Ethel could not travel the world and still achieve her political and legal ambitions in the country she lived in now. If she wished to join Selene and be a part of her dream, then she would have to leave those ambitions behind.

“Very well,” she said slowly. “In that case, I shall not set my sights on either. Instead, I shall come with you.”

“What about studying and practising law?” Selene asked.

“I can still study the law whilst we travel.”

“But… Your new dream, Effy!”

“It is no matter. If we search the whole world, I am certain to find another dream elsewhere,” said Ethel, trying her hardest to keep the doubt and disappointment from her voice. Clearly, she had not tried hard enough, however, for Selene shook her head.

“No, that will not do. I cannot stop you from achieving your ambitions,” she said. “I do not need to see the world. I can read about it in stories and imagine it. Who knows, my imagination may even be better than the reality.”

“Selene, you cannot mean to give up your wishes for mine.”

“You meant to do the same for me.”

“I know, but I cannot abide the idea of you being miserable on my account.”

“I shall not be miserable if I am to see you happy.”

“And I could never be happy if I knew that it was at your expense,” Ethel replied. “We shall go together.”

“No, we shall remain here together.”

“But, Selly…”

“You are my best friend, Ethel. I cannot allow you to abandon your dreams.”

“And I cannot allow you to abandon yours.”

Both girls knew the other to be incredibly stubborn. There was no way in which one might give way to the other. They had to reach a compromise.

“So, what should we do?” Selene asked with a puzzled expression.

Ethel thought for a moment, before coming up with a suggestion. It was not a suggestion that filled her with hope, but it was at least some sort of solution to their problem.

“We could stick to our old plan,” she said, feeling her heart sink at the words. “Of course, neither of us would be truly happy, but at least we would both be slightly miserable together.”

“We could do that, yes.” Selene sighed, and bit down on her bottom lip before adding: “Or…”

“Or?”

The word Ethel had hoped to hear. Naturally, Selene would find the answer. But Selene’s answer was not one that she had expected, nor wanted to hear:

“Or we could both be truly happy separated.”

Ethel’s lips parted and her eyebrows furrowed. She did not understand Selene’s meaning. How could either of them ever be truly happy if they were separated? How could they be separated? They were inseparable, everyone knew that.

“Listen. Really, listen,” Selene insisted. “One of us is going to have to sacrifice our dreams, and neither of us is prepared to watch the other do that. If we both sacrifice our dreams, we will be together, but we will both be unhappy.”

“I don’t mind being unhappy,” said Ethel, completely honestly.

“No, but I mind your being unhappy. And you mind my being unhappy.” Selene’s eyes were filling with tears. “If the only way for us both to be happy is for us to be so apart, then that is what we shall have to do. We shall miss each other greatly, but I would much rather miss you and be content knowing that you are happy than to see you miserable. Do you not feel the same?”

Ethel did not want to admit it, but it was true. If it was a choice between sacrificing Selene’s happiness or sacrificing Selene’s presence at her side, she knew which she must sacrifice. So, reluctantly, she nodded her head.

“Our dreams are pulling us down two different paths,” Ethel said. Her own eyes were teary now, it made her vision blurry. “And if we must go our separate ways to follow them, then go our separate ways we must.”

“I believe so.”

A tear ran down Selene’s cheek. Seeing her so upset was enough to render Ethel entirely resolute. She was also upset, but could be strong, if only for Selene. She put her hand to Selly’s face, wiped her tear away with her thumb, and told her:

“You shall go, and you shall see the world.”

“And you shall stay, and you shall change it for the better.”

Selene took hold of Ethel’s hand and squeezed it, tight. Ethel blinked back her tears, to no avail.

“I will miss you, though,” she told Selene.

“And I you,” was Selene’s reply. “But we…” She swallowed. “Effy, do you promise that whatever we both do, and wherever we both go, that we shall always be sisters?”

“Always, Selly. I promise.”

The two girls - the two sisters - were both crying now, and there was nothing that could stop either of from doing so. And though they both knew it was impossible to console the other, they still wrapped their arms around each other in a hug so tight that no one other than they themselves would ever be able to separate them.

#ethel hexley #selene fraser #the beginning of a symphony #hogwarts legacy

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hayffiebird · 3 months

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Taste of Strawberries, chap. 40 (part two)

Author’s note: TRIGGER WARNING for mentions of eating disorder, suicidal ideations, animal cruelty and sexual assault.

Forgive me for any typos. I am really tired!

Hayffie Post-Mockingjay Multi-chapter, Rated M

Four years have passed since the end of the war when Effie returns in to Haymitch’s life once again. An old friendship is renewed. Will it lead to something more?

Meanwhile Panem has entered a new era. The rebellion’s over, the borders are open but in the shadows, anger and mistrust are smoldering. Something that will affect Haymitch and Effie’s life in a way they never saw coming.

Chapter 40

The writing on the wall (part two)

“When we graduated from the Academy,” Annabel continued her story, “Effie was dead-set on becoming a licensed architect. For years, that’s all she ever talked about. But her father contacted my father. Asked if he could pull a few strings. Recommend his daughter for an escort position. An outline district would be absolutely fine. And then they gave her the good news like a sort of … early birthday present. One she could not return without breaking their hearts.

I had no idea what I wanted. Most of the time I just longed back to our Academy days. Those years remain some of the happiest of my life. Before I met June. It was Effie and I against the world. I even got smitten for the first time. A girl in our year with wild, curly, jet black hair. And the school, while strict, was also my ticket out of Cordelia’s little kingdom, or so I thought.

All the Snow children were homeschooled. Like most of the prominent ultra-rich families. Especially the daughters, destined for marriage rather than higher studies. But my father was adamant. His girls wouldn’t sit and wait until someone proposed. We would get a proper, thorough tuition first and embark on a fine career of some sort. So, first the Academy – then the University, just like he once did.

Pallas and Apollo’s Academy were boarding schools back then. ‘Give them to us young and they are ours forever’ was the motto. So even though I’d still see Cordelia during each Games, I’d only ever leave the school’s stone walls for the occasional holiday. With me tucked away, I thought, some other girl would take my place and I’d fade from Cordelia’s memory.

After graduation I moved back home again. All of us children were expected to stay at the Flickermansion until we were properly married off.

Father was present and he wasn’t. He outsourced everything. Nannies to dress us, chefs to feed us, housekeepers to clean up our mess. I think I joined The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – father’s house band, playing the trumpet because then at least I’d see him and not through a television screen.

He wasn’t a bad father. He loved us deeply. He just didn’t really have time to have five daughters. Especially after mother died. I believe he always tried to do what was best for us. But how can you really know what that is when you hardly ever see each other? Especially in a society that teaches you to push down every bad feeling that arises.

I had been home for just a couple of weeks when father summoned me to his office. Said he had some great news. I was betrothed.

‘Clearly you’ve made a good impression’, he said. ‘Cordelia asked for you herself. Her parents have blessed it. A fall wedding. How would you like that?”

I always knew I’d be married off eventually. To the daughter of a coal mining tycoon or maybe an award-winning up-and-coming director like Cressida. A match viewed as mutually beneficial for both families. But unlike many parents in the Capitol my father, our father, promised the five of us that we’d all have a say in who we got engaged to. He’d never sentence us to a forced marriage.

But in these matters he had no choice. And we both knew it. You didn’t say no to Snow.

‘This is the best thing that could’ve happened, Bee,” he said. ‘We couldn’t have hoped for a better match. The merging of the families … We’ll be related to the most powerful man in Panem.’

What he didn’t say, not in so many words, were the dangers of declining such a generous offer. If I so much as hesitated it would be questions. My wavering could set a ball rolling that we had no means to control.

After that, I was to spend all my Saturdays with Cordelia. At the mansion, closely chaperoned of course. All while the Snows and the Flickermans made arrangements for our three day wedding.”

She wet her lips, a vacant look in her eyes much like Effie when she shared a painful memory.

“I could never quite tell if she really was gay like me or just wanted something soft and submissive to use at her own fancy. Like the animals. Either way, I knew that once we were married she could beat me and enjoy me as she pleased and there was nothing I could do about it. Not without risking my family.

I didn’t know it then but looking back, I was clinically depressed by that point. Save those mandatory Saturdays I isolated myself from everyone, even Effie. Kept to the Flickermansion as much as possible. I’d counted calories on and off for years but it wasn’t until my engagement that the habit really escalated. Triggered an addition of sorts. I could control little else in my life but I could control what I ate. Or didn’t ate.

Weight loss is glorified in the Capitol. Praised no matter how you achieved it. People want to know your secret. Calls you morphling chic. But for me, it was never really about being thinner or looking a certain way. I doubt it ever really is, at the core if you have this disease.

First I thought I had control over it. This ‘weight journey’ of mine in lack of a better word. But once I reached my goal I started negotiate and bargain the finish line, pushed it further and further ahead. Because it was never really about the weight.

It was a system I built up, to protect myself from anxiety. To manage my feelings. It would just be me and anorexia sitting in a room and then it wouldn’t matter that I was alone and unhappy, facing a future I dreaded.

I had a hard time showing up for meals. To eat in front of people in general. I felt like everyone was watching me but if I missed too many dinners my sisters would ask questions.

So it became this destructive cycle of starving myself and then binge-eat as a response which triggered panic attacks so strong I went and drank Evermore drops to make myself vomit, only to tumble into a pit of self-loathing for wasting good food and so I was right back to not eating again.

And then there were still my Saturdays with Cordelia. For someone who apparently ‘asked for me herself’ she couldn’t care less about the wedding plans being made over our heads. We never really talked about it, but she spent more and more time with the animals and during the last weeks of her life she practically lived in the Asphodel Meadow.

It was really just another room, with the same twenty-foot-high walls but it had a force field, mimicking an open green plain, distant mountains and the wide blue sky.

Cordelia owned only one animal bigger than herself. A pony. I called her Boo for short and she was the fairest, mildest, most sweet-muzzled creature you ever saw. A cream colored, freckled Connemara who loved sugar. I always made sure to bring a few cubes in my dress pocket in the hopes that I might slip her some.

The Asphodel Meadow was an equestrian centre laid out with horse jumping obstacles and this is where she lived. Boo. I never got to ride her myself but I braided her mane, groomed her, cleaned her hooves. Minor things that bored Cordelia.

She was a fine rider. Had been on horseback since she was a toddler. She was supposed to always wear a helmet and never ride bareback but she hardly ever followed those rules.

One morning when I got there she was in a foul mood. I never did learn why but she took Boo out before she was saddled and ready. Didn’t care what anyone else had to say. Just grabbed the whip and swung herself onto the horse’s back.

I’d seen her hurt Boo before but never like that. She was livid. The people who worked the stable tried to rein her in but Cordelia ignored their every attempt. Furious, her and Boo soared over the jumping obstacles and either you got out of her way or you got run down.

Then something happened with the force field. To this day I don’t know what it was. If somewhere a fuse had blown or there was a power cut or someone simply turned it off but there was a sharp zapping sound and in an instant the Mind Flight was gone. Nothing left but the real ceiling, the high walls with no doors unlocked but the ones leading you back into the depths of the mansion.

The reaction from Cordelia was instantaneous. She shrieked with fury and slammed the whip down, harder and harder. Yelled at Boo to go faster. Punished her, I think, for everything wrong in her life. Whipped her bloody until I screamed at her to stop.

Finally crazed with pain and terror the horse bolted. The servants could not control her. Neither could Cordelia. She shouted at the mare but the animal was beyond reach. All the girl could do was drop the whip and clutch on to Boo’s mane. Grip her with her knees. She couldn’t even throw herself off at such sped without breaking bones, without being trampled.

Panicked, I watched it play out. Frozen like the first time she kissed me. And then Boo crashed into the vertical poles of a nearby obstacle. Cordelia flew forward and slammed into the ground, head-first.

The room was in an uproar. People running wild. Some for Boo, most of them for the young woman. All I did was stare at one of her boots, twitching with what little life still left in her. She’d broken her neck. By the time the doctor arrived she was already gone.

The next few days were a haze. I was in shock. Numb. Scared too. Scared over what might happen to my family. I know father called for an emergency meeting. A meeting we children had no part of, of course. It wasn’t hard to guess what the topic was. ‘What we will do if miss Cordelia’s death is blamed on Annabel’. As if any words or actions on our part would make the slightest difference if Snow decided to rain his fury down on us.

In the end, Cordelia’s fate was ruled a tragic accident. Capitol News made a glorious tribute about president Snow’s oldest daughter. ‘The free spirit and lover of animals. A fine rider heading toward a brilliant future when taken to young.’

I never forgot Snow’s face at the funeral. Hard-lined. Unsmiling. A white rose in his lapel. Very controlled and yet I couldn’t escape the feeling that on the inside he was dancing. Because a problem of his had been solved in an unexpected yet welcomed way. A bad leaf snipped off of an otherwise glorious rose.

And I lay awake at night wondering if I was much better. Wondered during those bleak, dark, sleepless hours if the real reason I did nothing when Cordelia died was because a part of me wanted her dead, wanted to be rid off her.

What kind of person was I for being more upset about Boo having to be put down than I was a dead girl. A girl probably feeling just as trapped and caged as I was, only more. If I could wave a wand and bring her back to life, would I? Would I really?

Not a week after the funeral, the citizens of the Capitol had already gotten on with their lives.

Not me.

I hadn’t seen Effie in ages. Hardly ever returned her calls. So when we finally did meet up at her place she noticed how much I’d changed physically, unlike my family who saw me every day. And I could pretend in front of my father and my sisters but not Effie. In the end, I told her everything.

About Cordelia. About my anxiety attacks. That I didn’t know how to eat normally anymore and that the only thing I could hope to achieve with my pathetic little existence was help continue Snow’s Games through my father’s name. All the things I never told a living soul. I could see how concerned she got. ‘I think we should talk to your father’, she said but I made her swear not to tell anyone. Not ever!

I already regretted opening up. Effie wanted to meet up again after that but I dodged her suggestions of when and where.

A week of this and my father took me aside again. Only this time, he came to me. For ten dreadful seconds I feared he’d announce another marriage candidate but that wasn’t it at all.

Effie Trinket had come to see him. Told him she was worried. Deeply worried. About me. That I seemed depressed. That I wasn’t eating.

I’ve never felt so betrayed. So deceived. I trusted her with my secrets and my darkness and she fed me to the wolves. The only real friend I thought I had in the Capitol.

So then our house doctor paid us a visit, I got my diagnosis and from that moment on everything changed.

Anorexia is a symptom of a larger problem but people thing the problem lies with the food. If only you start eating again you’ll be healthy and happy. So why aren’t you eating? Just eat!

So I started hiding my behavior – the sick ways in which I ate and it infected every ritual, every habit, surrounding food. Even with eyes on me, I hid parts of my meal in the napkin, smeared the gravy out across my plate, found ways to get my hands on Evermores and burned the bloody tissues in the open fireplace.

With each broken rule the grip on me grew tighter and tighter. My going to the dining hall was now mandatory. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, closely supervised by nurses employed by my father. And their obsessive-compulsive counting of calories only fed the existing problem, like petrol on a fire. I couldn’t use the bathroom without someone standing outside the door. They locked me in at night with guards at the door. Put bars on the windows so I couldn’t escape for a nocturnal run around the garden.

Ten days of this and I snapped. Completely. Called Effie. Screamed at her until my voice gave out. Told her I never wanted to see her again. That I’d never forgive her for doing this to me.

With Effie cut from my life, everything got even more unbearable. A month went by. Two. I was literally a prisoner at my father’s mansion. Like Cordelia. I don’t think my family trusted me outside those walls and they were right. There must have been questions about my empty chair in the house band but I guess father came up with an acceptable excuse. A secret passion project perhaps.

Finally, the hospital had to get involved. I was literally wasting away before my family’s eyes. Way beyond what even the Capitol considered attractive and still losing pound after pound.

This was the last resort. Executed in the biggest of secrecy. Father wanted as little bad publicity about me as possible after what happened with Cordelia. To protect me in his own way. I didn’t put up a fight. Was nothing I could do. Either I checked myself in to their psych ward voluntarily or I’d be committed against my will just the same.

My father never called. Never visited. Neither did my sisters. Looking back I believe they trusted that I was in good hands. That interfering would only hinder my progress. But at the time I felt nothing but utter and complete abandonment. That the outside world had finally forgotten me and wasn’t that what I always wanted?

Days passed. Weeks. Medicines. Therapy. Enteral nutrition pumped into my body. We were eight patients at my ward. Eight pale little ghosts floating around. Nurses and the occasional doctor filled the halls at all time. I didn’t care what they did to me. Didn’t care about anything anymore. Well, not quite. I was waiting. For my first day pass. One day outside those walls. Just an hour would do. So I could slip some garden rocks into my coat pockets and walk straight out into the River Theseus.

So outwardly, I co-operated. Did what they asked. Told them what they wanted to hear. But inside, I’d withdrawn so far into my numb little shell I might as well already be dead. The only thing that got me going during those first few weeks was visualizing the quiet, deep river. Over and over again.

But then, there came a letter. First and only time I ever got one at the ward. And I didn’t have to turn it over to know who sent it. I’d recognize that careful handwriting anywhere. The nurse who first brought it to me, stood with me as I read. Hours after I’d mustered up enough courage to do so.

Sweet Effie. It was as if all of my dark thoughts had somehow lit a beacon. A beacon so large she was able to see the smoke rising into the sky all the way from her apartment.

The nurses got a call through to her for me and an hour later she arrived in the little room for family and friends.

One look at her was all it took. Even after everything I said during that awful phone call months ago, her blue eyes held nothing but love and I completely fell apart. Her arms encircled me and I cried. More than cried. Wailed. Like a child sitting at the bottom of a well with no way to get up.

She helped me to the couch so my knees wouldn’t give out. Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t even get any words out. Words of forgiveness, most of all. But I didn’t have to. She understood anyway. And she just held me. Caressed my back, my hair with quiet soothing sounds. Like I were a baby in her arms. She stayed with me for as long as she was allowed to. When they came to take me away and I started trembling she squeezed my hands and said, ‘Tomorrow.’

A fresh wave of pain filled Annabel’s eyes, but not for the reason Haymitch imagined.

“I didn’t know it then,” she said, “but she was already pregnant by that point. I was still on the inside when she gave birth to her boy, months later. We’ve never really talked about it since but I wonder sometimes. If I hadn’t ended our friendship when I did, right in the middle of her tender first time as escort in the Games … If I never said the things I did, would she have come to me instead of going to that party.”

“Not your fault,” said Haymitch. “Effie would never blame you. You want a culprit, that’s Kane.” And, with a heat behind it that made the hairs on his arms stand: “Sexual assault. That’s what it was. Doesn’t matter if he didn’t literally force himself onto her, it’s still fucking rape!”

He’d given it a lot of thought ever since Effie first told him and the more he did, the more he felt he wouldn’t mind jamming his knife into the man a couple of times. If they ever saw each other face to face.

Lucky for him he’s rotting in jail.

“I haven’t been there for Effie the way I should,” Annabel said, with a pain behind the words that he knew all too well. “It’s one of my deepest regrets. That I didn’t pay better attention. Listened to the things she wasn’t saying. The way you do. The way she did with me. I wish I’d spent more time with her. Especially after the war and my father’s trial. Instead I fled to District 11 every chance I got, first as a volunteer worker and then living here part-time.”

She drew a deep breath.

“But I am here now. She saved my life. She knew I didn’t want help. Knew I’d hate her for interfering . Knew I had the means to turn the Capitol against her if I wanted to. And she was fine with that. Fine with all of it. Because I would be alive to do it … Takes a pretty remarkable person,” she said, “to make a sacrifice like that.”

Haymitch nodded.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah.”

“You’ve been through hell,” Annabel said. ”I know that. Worse than any of us can possibly imagine. I just told you all this because I want you to know I understand. What it’s like when the people you love most goes behind your back. Tries to make you do something you don’t want to do. She did the same to me.

But it wasn’t betrayal. It was love. She carried me on her back when I couldn’t go any further. Helped me get the help I needed to help myself.

And now she does the same to you. Carries you on her back. Carries Amy and Ian too. And she's strong, without a doubt. Stronger than most. But she's not made out of titanium. She won’t manage it forever. No one can.

Now, I’m not telling you to check yourself into a rehab facility. Maybe you can’t. And if you can’t you can’t. But if you want to do something for me, then I beg of you from the bottom of my heart: Don’t break her just because you cannot live without her.”

Author's note: Special thank you to my sweet, dear friend Sara for sharing her experiences of eating disorders with me to help with this chapter. She and Annabel are not the same person and they don’t share the same backstory but the things I got right about anorexia is 100 % thanks to Sara!

Also, as you might have noticed I've made a slight change in past chapters concerning Haymitch sleeping with other Capitol women when drunk.

In my defence, I included that headcanon in 2015 so it's been a minute but lately I've thought to myself: "Oh come on! Effie would NEVER let Haymitch do that when he's drunk and isn't thinking straight! Especially after what happened between her and Kane."

So I went and changed it soo that poor/lucky Haymitch only got to sleep with two women he really cared about.

#hayffie #the hunger games renaissance #haymitch x effie #caesar flickerman #the hunger games #haymitch abernathy #effie trinket #my fanfiction

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shurlycurly · 1 year

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Some things I had to say about the article that propably anyone will read but I want to say them out loud (I added some thoughts, yes I keep thinking about it)

1. I knew about this case back in may 2022 and started to read all I can about the accusations. By that time I was not a huge fan, only know him because of CMBYN and SN and praised his performance. Up to this point, I think that what we read about the AirMail article is a confirmation of some things his fandom has already said during those years:

- The lack of proof and inconsistencies of his accusers and how stalker one of them was from day one.

- The fact that his ex was part of the smear campaign and how a destructive person she is.

2. It also confirmed something that was pretty obvious, although some people believed it was not true: the affair, the cheating

- Was he a cheater? Yes he was, did he fucked up the marriage? I believe so but I think a relationship is about two people too. Thus, we would never know 100% what happened behind the scene. My conclusion is that none of them was a saint in the relationship, and it was toxic.

- Does it make him a bad, horrible despicable person? I think what it makes him is more a terrible partner, a toxic one, considering his explanation in the article about his other relashionships.

3. In the article it also stated things that were shocking and actually sad for me.

- The attempt of drowning: I have to say that when the "docu" was release last year I thought about how impactfull was going to be for him, mentally and emotionally. And that it could be the end for him, in terms that at some point we would wake up one day to find out he was gone. Well, by reading that he though about it, at the beginning of the scandal, really moved me.

- The sexual trauma he had as a child and how that leaded to his view of sex, it was really unfortunate. Was it a PR way to get forgiveness? As the article stated, is a common tactick, but I am not 100% sure it was the intention because also in the article, he stated that episode is not an excuse for his behaviour towards those women, it was more to find out the origin of his personal problems and the way he saw sex.

- I want to comment somthing here, since I have been reading about it yesterday: his sexuality. I think this topic is nobody's business. Whether some say the article is "forcing" readers to believe he is straight, to me, it is non sense. The article is not about his sexuality is about his personal traumas, issues, mistakes, his side of the story in terms of the accusations. When it was mentioned that "he had never had sex with a man" it was related to the colombian guy and Effie's comments.

4. About her ex, I might be honest, at the beginning I really was on her side. I mean, if you find out your husband cheated for so long, and started to have questionable behaviour and also is acussed of something so delicate. How would I feel? I would have felt terrible, disapointed, I wont even wanted to know about him anymore. But there are also some points:

-After reading about her and now confirming it through this article. My empathy for her dissapeared completely . In fact, I find her anmoying and somebody whose obsession to show her perfect-imperfect life makes her fake and irritating.

- Her way to react to everything: its really disapointing coming from someone who had everything on her side to be the smarter one. And it confirm the idea of "being older does not makes you more mature". Since she is older than him, but if she was mature or more clever she would have handle the situation better. Okey, as I said, the impact of a cheating specially after so many years can make you do things. He is the father of her children, embarrasing him for being a cheater would have been enough.

- But take it further to create this whole campaign for years and confabulate with the mistresses and accused him of r@p* and violance towards his children, leading to distroying his career, was too much.

- What I wonder is why? If you know your partner cheeted on you for years, why stay with him? Is more powerfull your intention to have the perfect family than separarte from a person that clearly does not love you anymore? Did he promissed he wont cheat again but keep doing it? Was it all about the money? We would never know for sure.

5. His process of healing. It is good to know that he is working on It, that he made peace with himself and his is finding his way to have a normal living. It Is his right, even after his wrongdoings, he has the right to start over and make a reflextion of this actions. Is people going to forgive him? I dont think so nor I think he should care about that. if he is fine is enough because unfortunatelly people in sm are toxic.

6. About the way he reflected on his actions. I think it is mature from him to take responsability. That is what anyone who made mistakes should do, but here I have some comments:

- I do not understand how people are mad or critize him. What did they expect? That he accepted he rape people, that he is cannibal? The article was his side of the story, and explain his version and supported it with information. Is the same way those women have done the last 2 years.

- About his comparison with RDJ and others. I think every story is different but in general I understand that what he meant was that those people struggle but at the end they change and are better now.

- there is one thing I did not like about and it was the "hero' death" comment. I like Armie. He seems like a genuine, honest person who had and is dealing with his issues. But I dont think it was good to compare his situation to "heros's death" since it make it look like he is the "hero" which clearly he wasn't nor isn't. Jus saying that you have to hit rock bottom to later start again for good would have been enough.

7. His friends. I have read that some questioned the way his friends commented about Armie. In my personal opinion, his friends are good ones. If I were one of his friends I would definetely talk to him and tell him how an ashole he was, I would even being disapointed, in addition to the fact that I would asking him if he raped somebody or not. Even more, if I warned him and at the end did the opposite, I would tell him "I told you". Does it make me a bad friend? I dont think so. A bad friend would have been if I leave him alone, or didnt support him, didn't try to help him to understand that what he did was wrong. A true friend tells you when you fucked up, but that does not mean they will leave you. I think they are those kind of friends.

8. About his career. I wish he come back. As I said I really like the way he act. For me, he has the qualities to be a good actor and he loves it. (The part that really broke me was when he said: "they didnt want me to act, but also they dont want me to have a normal life either"). In addition, I think:

- if that happen or not we dont know. Many did not like him before the scandal, less they do now. There is nothing he can do and I dont think HW would do anything.

- If Luca or any independent director cast him would be really nice. Based on his performances, he perfomes better on this type of films than the big budget ones.

- But at the same time, I think: if I were him and after being treated that way in the industry I work for 10 years, would I really wanted to comeback? If so I would have to see all those people who turn their backs on me or make fun of me or did not say anything when I needed the most. Personally I would felt weird.

9. About the reaction of people and the media. Well there is not too much to say:

- Show biz media really covered the most controvertial things, left aside the most important parts. In general, they kept the same narrative otherwise they would be seem as unbias and as bad journalism. Does it surprised me? Nop.

- But what I really congratulate Armie is for not choosing them as the media to release his side of the story. It was pretty smart I might say. I enjoy the idea of how Variety, Hollywood reporter and the rest might have been feeling to find out that he give the exclusive to the AirMail.

- about the people, well it does not suprised me how hypocrites people are in sm. The way they wish him d*ad and do not want to hear the side of his story, confirm how less interested are in knowing the whole picture compared to how eager are to distroy people.

10. About justice, I hope those people get the consecuentes of their actions. It is not fair for the Metoo movement and any sa survivor to have people who stained the cause and such delicate matter for their convenience and mental problems. Armie said he emotionally abused those women therefore he is paying the consecuences. It is time for the rest to get the same.

In general it was an interested article and I am really happy that he decided to talk. It was his right and also I think it was necessary.

If people believe him or not, that is another story.

#armie hammer #support armie hammer #supportarmiehammer #elizabeth chambers

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angelynmoon · 28 days

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Arthur shouldn't be surprised at the new Dragon on the training field, he really shouldn't, but he is, a little, mostly because no one can find Merlin or the Hatchlings. Even Lancelot and Gwaine have vanished and there is a dark scaled Dragon staring at him.

It's eyes had snapped wide open as soon as Arthur had arrive that morning and everytime he tried to get closer it growled, deep in it's throat, but the way it held it's wing, mostly stretched open made Arthur think it may be injured, and Arthur was no Merlin but he wanted to help.

It took hours before the Dragon finally shook it's head and stood, lifting it's large wings and shaking them out.

Arthur let out a sigh of relief when he saw Merlin in his Dragonskin follow the dark Dragon, a slightly smaller green one letting out a yawn accompanied by a jet of fire.

The green Dragon jerked up in what could only be surprise and flailed while Merlin corraled Ellie and Effie towards the largest Dragon.

"Merlin!" Arthur shouted, stopping his approach when the dark Dragon looked at him.

Merlin huffed and nuzzled at the big Dragon and Arthur's eyes narrowed, Merlin was only so affectionate with Lancelot, and Merlin wasn't one for cheating.

"Did you turn Lancelot into a Dragon?!" Arthur screamed.

"No, Gwaine made a foolish comment and Ellie and Effie made them Dragons." Merlin explained, "They won't be able to speak the Human tongue yet, but it should wear off in a week or so."

The green Dragon let out a shriek that Merlin ignored but Lancelot didn't, turning to the smaller Dragon and growling something out that had Gwaine looking chastised.

"Why won't he let me closer?" Arthur asked, Lancelot must know that Arthur wouldn't hurt them.

"Lancelot is more Dragon than human right now, he doesn't have the benefit of Magic to protect his mind, not to mention his family is more Dragon than not, even me, even when I'm human, Gwaine at least has the benefit of Leon and Percival still being human to retain his human mind." Merlin explained, "Lancelot was feeling more Dragonlike even before this happened."

"Yes, that does explain some of his behavior, but what do we do? He's too big for your tower." Arthur pointed out.

"I was thinking that we could go searching for more eggs, Lancelot and I are DragonMated now and we'll be called to them." Merlin told him.

"Weren't you before?" Arthur asked as his eyes fell on Lancelot as he began playfighting with Gwaine and the twins.

Merlin shook his head, "No, a Dragon is only called to an egg once Mated, the only reason Kilgharrah can find them is that he once had a Mate and lost her. I think, I think he might be trying to find her last clutch, she laid them right before the Purge but was one of the first Dragons lost to it and she never told anyone where she hid them."

Arthur sighed, eyes closed, he couldn't imagine losing Gwen or not knowing if Morgana was safe now that she was his daughter, oh, he'd had a hard time when she was his sister but now, he could blame the deaths the Great Dragon had done, could be angry about the loss of life, but part of him understood, he did not want to discover what kind of monster he could become if he lost Gwen or Morgana. Arthur could understand the Great Dragon for what he'd done out of grief and anger, but he would not let him back into Camelot, he could not risk his people, and he could not forgive what that grief had cost them, what it had cost Merlin.

"Could we come along or is it a Dragons only trip?" Arthur asked, he could use some time away from the council, Gwen would understand and she could handle them better than he could now that they were engaged.

Merlin tilted his head and turned to Lancelot as he came closer, having left Gwaine to greet Percival and Leon, the twins playing with his swishing tail, play hunting.

Lancelot rumbled and looked down at Arthur, there was both a protective gleam and a threat in those golden eyes, a promise of death should Arthur hurt his Kin.

Arthur gazed back and gave a slight nod, threat understood and accepted.

Merlin rolled his eyes at the posturing but nodded, "Lancelot is okay with you coming and Gwaine will want to bring Leon along, he wants to take him flying but you know how Percival is about hights."

Arthur laughed, Percival hated hights, he could manage it and do what needed to be done but if he had a choice he'd take the low ground, poor Gwaine, he'd probably never get Percival to fly with him.

"If he complains, I'll go with Leon to fly, but you have to promise to catch me if we fall, I know Gwaine's first priority will be Leon." Arthur said as he watched Gwaine nuzzle Percival and Leon, who seemed delighted that his father was a Dragon now.

"I promise." Merlin told him with a brief nudge before tucking his head under Lancelot's.

Lancelot gave a fake roar as Effie 'caught' his tail, her tiny teeth not even piercing Lancelot's hard scales but she clung viciously as Lancelot twisted to look at her, rumbling approval at her.

Effie held for a moment longer then released and licked at the 'wound' before moving away, getting caught by Merlin while Ellie got her chance to catch Lancelot's tail.

Arthur watched as Merlin lifted Effie up and began to lick her clean, not that she was really dirty but Arthur supposed it was one of those Dragon things, to get her scented like them or whatever because Lancelot licked a stripe down Effie's spine before Merlin released her to play with Gwaine and Leon.

Come to think about it, Lancelot had licked Gwaine after their play before he'd come over to Merlin. Arthur narrowed his eyes at the two Dragons in front of him.

"Did you two adopt Gwaine?" Arthur asked.

Merlin smiled down at him, "How is it any different than me adopting him as a human?"

Arthur nodded, yeah, that made sense, Merlin had kind of adopted him back then too, even dragged him into their adventures, probably to make sure he was okay.

"He does give off a childish vibe, doesn't he?" Arthur asked as he looked over to where Gwaine was pretending to be defeated by Leon's wooden sword while Effie climbed on top of him.

Lancelot let out a laugh that shook the trees and let Ellie catch his tail so they could scent her and send her off to play with Gwaine and Effie. Then he drapped a wing over Merlin as they settled down to watch the kids play, Merlin eventually falling asleep, at which point Lancelot shifted him around so the drapped wing would hide him from view.

Lancelot stayed alert, head held high as he kept an eye on his Hatchlings and his Mate, eventually he'd take his turn at rest, but so newly Mated and with such young Hatchlings Lancelot was on high alert for another Dragon to try and take his family from him, it was instinct.

Eventually Ellie and Effie would tire and come to hide under Lancelot's wing, while Gwaine would settle himself close to curl around Leon for the boy's nap, Lancelot reaching to tuck him under his other wing, keeping both hidden from view as the knights began their training under the dark Dragon's watchful gaze.

If they were nervous only their scent showed it and Arthur was proud of them for standing their ground when Lancelot deemed it acceptable to participate by sending small jets of fire towards them, not big enough to harm but a test of how they could hold their ground against a Magical Creature.

Most of them did well, some would need practice to hold steady but eventually Arthur would have the only Knights that would be able to hold fast against a Magical threat.

A/n: Arthur needed to discover the Dragons on his training ground. Also Lancelot is more Dragon than Human at the moment because he's not a Dragonlord so doesn't have their natural protections and because his connections have more Dragon than most Humans do, that's why Gwaine still has a more human like demeaner because Percival and Leon remain Human.

I hope that makes sense.

#a knight #part 12 #mercelot #merlin/lancelot #arthur pendragon

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the-fall-of-armie-hammer · 1 year

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If that’s true, if he really used a fake “suicide” story just to get sympathy so everyone would forgive him for these awful deeds, that’s just so despicable! Obviously the interviewer couldn’t exactly fact-check whether Armie walked out into the ocean or what he was thinking. But they could have reached out to Effie and gotten her side of the rape fantasy stuff. They might even have stumbled onto her knowledge of the “ocean story” origin. It kind of feels like they didn’t try to interrogate Armie’s version of events at all…

Could that be the reason he chose Air Mail, an outlet we’d frankly never heard of, instead of, say, People or some other big outlet? As Effie also hinted at in her stories, Air Mail was founded by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter — someone who isn’t exactly a stranger to controversy when it comes to including the perspective of victims. The EIC was in charge of VF in 2003 when allegations of sexual misconduct were left out of an exposé on Jeffrey Epstein! Apparently reporter Vicky Ward had interviewed two young women at the time who were accusing Epstein. One of them, Annie Farmer, was one of the four victims who testified against Ghislaine Maxwell! But Carter removed them from the final copy? Ward contends that Carter had a “bromance” with Epstein and was trying to protect him. Last year, she released her own transcripts from the time in which Carter allegedly told her abuse of an underage girl was “not that earth-shattering.”

Did Armie choose that particular mag to tell his story, knowing what he could get away with talking to them? Hmm.

Effie had plenty more to say on the matter. You can find her entire, thorough debunking of Armie’s interview in her IG Story highlights HERE. As for Armie, we’re definitely going to have to be a lot more cynical when it comes to his public statements in the future…

#armie hammer

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yourssinfullyquiche · 1 year

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the thg series is filled with interesting characters who have captured our imaginations. do you have any headcanons about a character from the series who was not given a last name? (ex: cato, thom, portia, etc). could be from any of the four books. 😀 @anonymousinpanem

Sorry for such a late reply! I'll be honest I've been putting the thg asks on hold, I feel it needs its due attention and because I wasn't in a right place.

To answer your question anon, ummm not really. Only because I'm inclined to canon, I would love to read what Suzanne has envisaged for the characters. I feel that she has all this information and back stories for each character just locked away and I'm like SUZANNE JUST GIVE US. I will gladly take anything but first a book from Peeta's POV pls thank you.

There are many side characters I'm curious of since all thg characters have an air of mysteriousness to them and a part to them that aren't seen in the books.

Katniss' father. Who was he? WHAT WAS HIS NAME? We really went three books without his and Mrs Everdeen's names ever being mentioned. Why??? Was he rebellious? I think he sure was. To have taught his daughter hunting when he knew it is outlawed. Teaching her rebellious songs that had Mrs Everdeen out of her wits. I wanna know more about him. What were his flaws? He may not have been as angelic as Katniss paints him to be—that is forgivable since she was so young when he passed.

All the D1 & D2 tributes—very curious how D1 & D2 citizens are. What are their POVs. What are their thoughts on all the other districts, on the Captiol, on Snow. In Catching Fire, we see how stricter the peacekeepers are in D11 beyond what Katniss is accustomed to in 12. How are the peacekeepers like in D1 & D2? Are they the same in 12? Or are they more lenient? How do the people live? What do they eat? How are the families there? Are the populace of mixed race? How do they enter the "training" school. What makes them so eager? What are they taught there to have such a mindset? You get my point anon. I'm curious how a person in D1 & D2 lives their life. In fact every other district but theirs most.

Cinna and Portia. I'm curious if they were Capitol citizens or from the districts. One of the few headcanons I have involve them being from the districts. How do they work so well? Do they know each other? If they were from the districts, how did they get scouted and sent to schools to learn? Or if they were from the Capitol, why were their opinions on the system so different? I really wanna know how Portia is like since we never get to see how she really is.

The girl and boy who were fleeing from god knows where & got captured—Katniss thinks they were from the Capitol (a little hazy on where they were from) but were they really? Why were they running away? What had they done? I doubt they were getting captured for just fooling around. It must've been something so severe that they took the boy's life and made the girl watch and then made her an avox. Like what did they do???

Plutarch Heavensbee. I wanna know MORE. He's one I find most mysterious. How was he able to detach from the system? What made him the person he is today? Interesting character.

Coin. I wanna know more about her. Katniss learns from Prim, she lost her family through an epidemic. I wanna know what happened. What she did to rise to power. She's another character I find thought provoking.

Effie. I wanna know if she's really that of an airhead Katniss seems to think/makes her to be. I don't think being an escort for the hunger games warrants you to be one. Just my thought. I think she knows more than she lets on and she's being that way only because she's afraid and does not want to jeopardise her family (if she has), career and life.

Madge. I wanna know more about her. Was she getting information by snooping around her father's office? What was the conversation that happened between the Undersee family when Katniss released the arrow that shocked the whole system? Were they scrambling to get away when all hell broke loose. I feel this was a missed opportunity by Suzanne. Madge would've been an interesting character to see in 13. Was she really canoodling ahem ahem with Gale as what was subtly implied in Catching fire? How would that have affected her friendship with Katniss? Idk I feel she would've been a really interesting character to see in the rebellion/war. What would her role be like in the war?

Boggs. I love his character sm. I wanna know more about him.

As you can see anon basically all LOL. I'm sorry this doesn't directly answer your question. In fact I don't even think it did🤣 But I needed to spill this somewhere~ Ahhh it became so long, sorry anon. I tend to go on and on when it's something I find passionate about. Hope you made it this far~

Thank you for your ask!

#quiche replies #thg #the hunger games #anonymousinpanem #suzanne just give us the whole damn encyclopedia already will you

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vinivre · 4 months

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Even though it hurt, everything hurt, this is what she wanted. The numbness that fell over her the second she awoke in the capitol had not been fixed. There was no reason for her to live anymore.

She failed.

As far as she knew Peeta Mellark was dead with the rest of her family. The Capitol had won, Snow had won. She blamed herself for not being smarter or doing better. If she had just been the person Haymitch and Effie taught her to be she might have saved them. If she had just behaved, things would be different. The time they gave her to think in the Capitol ate her alive, Snow knew that. She was in solitary all day except for her treatments.

That’s what they liked to call them, treatments. It was like something was wrong with her that they needed to fix. They were always painful and usually left her in a fog. Sometimes she didn’t even want to escape the cloudiness her world was covered in. Life became harder outside the haze, everything was much more real, much more painful.

The nightmares never ceased, at least in the fog they were somewhat hidden. She was always covered in blood, voices of Peeta, Prim, Gale, and the others echoed in her head. They would pound against her brain, cracking her scull as they did. All she ever wanted was to keep them safe. Now she’d sacrificed herself and still not succeeded. Sometimes she thought she may never forgive herself for that, that the Capitol would kill her before she ever could.

A Peacekeeper would come in everyday, telling her about the upcoming interview. She would never reply, not even nod. When the time came she would do what they wanted but then was not that time. They didn’t deserve her attention or her response. All they wanted was a tool to keep the districts from rioting anymore, she knew that. There was no good reason for more people to get hurt so she figured she’d do as they instructed. It wasn’t in her nature to follow the Capitol but there seemed to be no other choice.

They sat her down in a chair after doing her hair and her makeup. She looked like a real lady, the one Effie always wanted her to be. Tears never left her eyes as she stared at Caesar. Katniss wasn’t sure but she believed he felt bad, seeing his Girl on Fire this way. She wasn’t a symbol anymore, she was just a pair of broken wings. After the intro he began to ask her questions about the riots and her opinion on them. She reminded herself once more of the others before responding.

❝ The riots have to stop… There’s just so much killing being done already. Each year we sacrifice 23 children and now we’re killing in our own districts. It needs to stop. This isn’t right. The Capitol just wants peace, and I do too. Please stop killing… Too many people have been lost already. ❞

Then he just had to mention Peeta. Her jaw clenched and her eyes shifted to him. The intensity in them could be alarming. Her body began to shake even more than before as she replied.

❝ I… I wish I could tell him that I love him. Until now I doubted it but I know… I know I do. He didn’t… He didn’t deserve… Can I stop now?❞

Katniss looked to Caesar, her voice quivering. She missed her haze now more than ever, she wanted to go back. It hurt to talk about him, especially with the voices clawing their way out again. All she wanted was for it to be over, for good. The man nodded to her, a saddened look on his face.

She just wanted it all to stop.

His body grew limp in Haymitch’s grasp who now had to hold him up with his strength. Katniss. She was alive and well as everyone had told him. She was in the Capitol, another truth told. Why was she telling everyone to cease the fight? Then it clicked, the old man in District Eleven, executed right before them. They caught it before the doors were slammed in their faces. Other incidents as this happened whilst on their tour and this was why. She had alsways been so strong but when Peeta came to know that she was fearful of what Snow could do, it just showed that she did have a vulnerability, one that maybe only he and Haymitch knew of.

Gale was near him, his eyes wide in shock of her words, her voice broken. Peeta could tell by a glance over to him. This was not the Katniss they knew and loved. She was not the strong girl that went into the woods daily and volunteered for her little sister, Prim. No, this was a girl who was slowly dying on the inside. He could always tell her emotions, and at this moment he was.

His name was mentioned; however no word of if he was living or died during the commotion of the end of the Games, the one Katniss set. It was at this moment that he regained feeling in his legs and walked closer to the screen his hand lightly grazing the hard surface where her cheek was, up close. His eyes were wide with terror and sadness. Then her words came out and he nearly fell again, but was able to hold himself up except for the tears which he could not hold back any longer, slowly rolling down his cheeks. She loved him and he did not deserve—what? What did he not deserve to die? Does she think he died? His heart began to pound and he grew worried, that she was spending restless nights guilty of his death. He knew she had made a deal with Haymitch to keep him alive. It was something that Katniss could not hide even if she had tried her hardest it did not work.

The sadness that entered her face in a flash left him more broken than he was to start with. What was he suppose to do? The screen went black and he turned around and gave everyone in the room a wild look one of desperation. “She thinks I am dead still, doesn’t she? Does the Capitol even know? What am I suppose to do as the newMockingjay? Magically appear and say ‘Hey I am alive and well now fight!’ They’ll kill her even if I show my face, they’ll have their way with her! We can’t just let them keep her there, we—we have to do something! What are you good for except leaving the other districts in the dark for so many years—and you, Haymitch! You let this happen you and Plutarch–you both left her in there! Why me?”

It was a full rant to all of them. Gale who looked away, clearly in distress and not appreciating Peeta’s words. Oh, he knew how much he wished that standing there where Peeta stood was Katniss and not him and maybe if it was her–she would be happy. Haymitch only tried to explain being interuppted multiple times by Plutarch Heavensbee. It was hard to even follow any of their words, their hollow apologies and explanations of pure air. That’s when the President, President Coin was her name spoke up and said it was her idea to get him instead. Dislike filled him quickly. He was nothing compared to Katniss, nothing.

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marril96 · 3 years

Text

Out of the Woods

Chapter 4: A Witch Scorned

Characters: reader, Sam, Dean, Rowena

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: An explosive argument leads to you running away and puts Rowena in danger.

Editor: @miss-moon-guardian

*****

Rowena's hands were bound by heavy chains that hung from the ceiling. Her blouse and dress pants were torn, ripped in places, fabric and thread hanging loose.

Injuries marred every exposed piece of her flesh. A cut stretched across her cheek, another one across her chest. Blood drenched her blouse, staining the white fabric the color of rust. Her face was red and purple with bruises. Eyes framed by dark crescents. Lower lip swollen, blood dripping down its split corner.

She was exhausted. Week. The chains were the only thing keeping her on her shaky feet.

It's okay, baby, you thought, as if she could hear you, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill free. It's gonna be okay. You were here now, and you weren't going to let anything happen to her.

The worst had passed.

Whatever happened from here on, she wouldn't be hurt. You'd walked away from her once; you weren't going to make the same mistake again.

The man beside Rowena, the monster, glared at you, Sam, and Dean with hatred more intense than anything you'd ever seen before. He was older, around Bobby's age, but appeared fit, strong. His right hand cradled a knife, the left one balled into a tight, angry fist.

Useless for you were angrier. And hell hath no fury like a witch on a vengeance mission.

"Hunters," the man said appreciatively, his intense expression softening into one of friendship. "It was only a matter of time before you tracked me down."

Sam and Dean, yeah. But you… "Guess again," you spat, eyes flashing purple. An open threat. A promise that he wasn't going to get away with what he'd done. That you didn't forgive — not when it came to the woman you loved.

He stiffened at your display of power, but quickly regained his composure. Was that disgust on his face? Contempt? "And a witch." He looked at Sam and Dean like a grandfather disappointed in his grandchildren's life choices. "Is that what hunters today are doing? Partnering up with witches?"

"Sometimes we sleep with them," Dean said cheekily, prompting everyone in the cabin (even Rowena, in her weakened state) to glare at him.

"Well," the man mused, "one must have their fun, I suppose. We're all human, after all."

You begged to differ that he belonged in that category.

"That witch is with us," Sam said, gesturing to Rowena. "So let her go."

"Is that so?"

"She's an ally."

The man spat, disgusted. "So you're the friends she threatened me with." Rowena smirked, a wordless I-told-you-so. "Here I was, expecting a Coven."

"Oh, there is a Coven," you said.

Rowena coughed. Gathering the last remnants of her strength, she uttered, "It takes three for a Coven, love."

You grit your teeth. Typical. She'd been tortured for hours, had god knows what done to her, and that was the first thing she decided to say to you?

You cleared your throat. "There's a dyad."

"Scary," the man deadpanned.

"You should be scared."

He really should. You didn't look like much — couldn't do much — but you were a capable witch. You could hurt him. You could kill him, and you wouldn't have to lift a finger. The perks of having a pro as your mentor.

"You witches and your empty threats. And here I thought you were formidable."

You were, when people didn't sneak up on you from behind. Like he surely must have done to Rowena and those witches he'd murdered.

"At least we're not cowards," you retorted because what did it matter, anyway? He was surrounded. A dead man walking.

"You mean, like when you killed my son?" His eyes bore into yours, pierced right through to your soul. "When you spewed out that Latin shit and ordered my wife to cut her own throat? When you ripped my grandson's heart out and used it as an ingredient for a potion?"

The words sent chills down your spine. A horrid story it was. Utterly tragic.

But you hadn't done anything like that; you never had, and never would. And neither had Rowena.

"That wasn't us."

"It was a witch."

"Still not us."

You'd suffered at the hands of humans. Had shed numerous tears. Not once had you wanted to exterminate the entire species.

The man was sick. Deranged. A rabid animal too far gone, that needed to be put down.

"Your kind is evil."

You had to scoff. "Yours is worse."

He ignored your remark. Held his knife up, the blood-coated blade glinting under the fluorescent light. "You are abominations of nature."

"Put down the knife!" Sam barked.

The man just chuckled.

"Put it down!" Dean yelled.

"Here I thought my fellow humans would agree." The hunter's shoulders sagged. Face fell. "Guess not."

"Stay away from her or—"

"Or what?!" he snarled, red in the face. "You can't do anything to me! You've already taken everything!"

He pulled at Rowena's hair, eliciting a yelp from her dry lips. Bared her neck for you to see. Brushed his blade against the soft, bruised flesh.

They said there was nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.

They were wrong.

"Impetus bestiarum!" you screamed, stopping him in his tracks. He turned to you, red-rimmed eyes dripping blood. Veins popping over his cheeks. "Cut your own throat—" and say hello to your wife, you thought bitterly "—you son of a bitch!"

He stared at you as if in contemplation, though you knew it was a done deal. There was nothing for him to think about. Nothing for him to consider. He was under your command; your servant, your slave. Your fucing belonging. And he was going to do what you told him to.

And he did.

The knife glided across his skin, the sharp blade digging in, burrowing itself deep. Blood gushed, thick and fast as a downpour. The man gurgled. Struggled for breath. The knife slipped from his fingers, landing with a clank that echoed in the silence of the cabin.

He made a step towards you; a single, desperate step before collapsing at Rowena's feet. Motionless. Dead.

A breath you'd been holding finally seeped out. Relief flooded your veins, tension dissipating from your shoulders.

It was over.

The monster had been defeated.

Your girl was safe.

"Remind me not to piss you off," Dean commented.

You responded with a small, proud chuckle.

Rowena's eyes, wounded, broken, met yours. She smiled, flinching as the gesture pulled at her split lip. "That's my girl."

Your heart bloomed with joy. You were at her side in an instant, fingers brushing against hers. A silent promise of safety, of protection. You were here, her tormentor was dead, and she was okay. She was going to be okay.

"I was wrong earlier," you said, pressing your forehead to hers, gently as to not agitate her wounds. Tears you'd been holding back spilled down your face. "You're not a shitty girlfriend. You're the best. You'll always be the best."

No matter how difficult she was. No matter how hard you fought, how loudly you screamed in each other's face. She was one of a kind. Special. Perfect. You wouldn't trade her for the world.

"As will you," Rowena said softly. "I knew you would come for me."

"I don't like people taking what's mine."

"My wee savage."

"I learned from the best."

She pulled at the chains weakly. "Would you be so kind as to undo these? I could use a wee rest."

"Of course."

You would take her home. Take care of her. Love her in actions as well as words.

And everything would be right in the world again.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @shadowgirl-vsb @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @evil-regal-vampiress @hellbentredhead @angel-e-v-a @a-queen-and-her-throne @carryon-doctor-lock @fangirlxwritesx67 @mintymarshmellows @midnight-lestrange @osterhagen @impala-1979 @gracib16 @feelsandotps

#rowena #rowena macleod #spn #supernatural #spn family #sam winchester #dean winchester #rowena x reader #rowena macleod x reader #my fics #fanfiction

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effieduan · 3 years

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Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog || Kaden & Effie

TIMING: Shortly after Effie got Loker, her Basset Hound.

PARTIES: @chasseurdeloup & @effieduan

SUMMARY: Effie thinks the dog is going to eat her. Kaden thinks the dog is a monster. Truth is, he ain’t nothing but a hound dog

CONTENT: No Triggers!

“Nice doggy!” The hound bared his fangs at her, tail thumping against the ground with a hungry look on his face. It was like the tree situation, except she had managed to cram herself up onto her kitchen counter, staring warily down at the old basset hound. He was looking at her, every once in a while he would bark loudly at her. He wanted to eat her. She knew he wanted to eat her. The look in his eyes said all he wanted to eat for dinner that night was fox despite the multiple bags of kibble laying next to her island. Dog toys and multiple dog beds were strewn around the otherwise neat apartment -- Effie wasn’t planning on keeping the dog, really. She just didn’t want him to be uncomfortable during his stay. The dog barked as she gingerly tried swinging a leg over the counter, and she let out a shriek. Thank god she had the foresight to unplug everything in the apartment. “Nice! Doggy!”

Kaden came prepared, armed to the teeth. He had no idea what sort of canine creature would be waiting on the other side, but he was ready for anything. Hellhound, hedgehound, bonedoggle, aufhocker, barghest, cu-sith, dip, he had weapons for all of them. Could be anything. Probably not a raiju, squonk, or god forbid, a pricolici, but he was ready for any one of those all the same. Kaden knocked on the door. “Hello? Animal Control.” No response. Just a bark. And some yelling. He considered pounding on the door, but there was no time; there was no telling what was just beyond the threshold. She shrieked and he figured she’d forgive his intrusion later and Kaden threw himself into the door, shoulder first, ripping it off the hinges. His knife in hand, he sprinted to the source of the sound. “Hold on, I’m almost there! Stay calm!” shouted out as he ran towards the monster, ready to attack the second he saw whatever was waiting for him.

Animal Control. The dog was barking now, running in circles below her, absolutely bellowing his head off hearing someone at the door, and Effie shrieked again. What was that? Its call to arms?! Everything she ever knew about animals was rapidly leaving her head as pure terror replaced it, and she clung to her refrigerator, hardly even registering her door being kicked in. The dog lurched towards the intruder, and Effie yelled. “Wait! No!!” She wasn’t sure if it was to the dog or the man that came charging into her apartment, knife at the ready. The dog was jumping up onto the man’s knees, all stubby legs, floppy ears, tongue lolling out his mouth with loud deep barks coming from him. The familiar growl Effie had been hearing all morning -- or, well, since the dog had taken up residence in her home -- was coming from the back of his throat in between growls, his front paws tapping up onto the man’s legs as he jumped once, twice, three times…. But he wasn’t trying to rip the man’s kneecaps off. Or eat him. Or… well, do anything other than slobber on him. Effie froze, confusion flooding her face as she leaned forward to get a better look. “Wha -” She slipped, flailing down to the tile of her kitchen with a sharp smack. The dog barked, hopping down from the man, and immediately ran towards Effie -- Fear came back. That dog definitely has lunch on the mind! Her thoughts told her and she shrieked again, immediately driving back up for her safe spot on the counter, the dog nipping playfully at her heels.

Rounding the corner, Kaden scanned the area, looking for the monster in question. Which was it? What was he facing? Was the knife or the gun a better op--

Kaden stopped dead in his tracks, standing there, blinking in the kitchen as he saw a dog. Just a dog. “Putain de merde,” he started, letting loose a few more strings of curse words in French before letting out a deep sigh. The dog barked again at Effie before trotting over to him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” It was a hound dog. Nothing but a fucking hound dog. And it was howling. Kaden raised his hand out of the way as fast as he could, trying to keep the knife from getting near the animal. This was absolutely not what he expected to see. He was about to give him a pat when there was a crash to the floor. “Putain, are you alright?” With a sigh, Kaden sheathed the knife. “This what you called me about?” He walked over and crouched by the dog and held out his hand for him to sniff. “He looks pretty friendly to me. How’d he get here?” For a split second, he wondered if this was an illusion. If this was a kelpie or a hellhound that had been glamoured. His brow furrowed and he tried to listen to his hunter senses, see if anything pinged. A small chill ran down his spine. Merde.

“He was going to eat me!!” Effie insisted, pointing at the dog. The dog, however, just ran back to sit under the counter where she took refuge, sitting his butt down happily as his tail thumped against the floor, tongue lolling out his mouth. Effie pressed her lips together, staring down at the dog in exasperation. “At least… I thought… he was going to eat me,” Effie muttered, feeling heat rush to her face as she realized once again how silly she was being. Still, though, she didn’t get down off the counter. Instead, she pulled her legs up, crossing them. “I - Look. I’m not really a dog person -- I mean, I had one growing up --” Effie pointed at the single family photo she had. Five little girls, one separated from the rest wearing rubber gloves, and a big yellow golden retriever. “But Noodle was different and he’s…” Effie looked down at the dog again, and as if in response, he cocked his head at her. “... Not going to eat me,” she resigned. He barked as if he was agreeing with her. “I’m sorry. He -- well, he chased me up a tree in the common, and some lady helped me down. And then I thought he just went away, but I got back to my car and I swear I only left the driver’s side door open for a second, so I could put my bag in the trunk and there he was in the passenger seat! And everytime I tried to get him down he just…. Did the growly thing at me. So I drove home and then he got out once we got home, and I parked and I figured that was the end of it… until I unlocked the door to my shop and he ran in. He’s not chipped, and no one responded to the LOST posters I posted in town and online, and I don’t want him to go to the pound or a shelter because he’s old. Old dogs don’t -- well, you know.” The dog barked again, and Effie jumped, looking away from Kaden and down at the dog. “What?! You are old!” More barking.

All Kaden could do was furrow his brow and blink, eyes darting between the dog and her. Then back again. Something wasn’t adding up. Scratch that, a lot of things weren’t adding up. And the more she talked, the less sense it made. “So. You’re scared of the dog. And brought it home anyway. And decided now was the time to call animal control?” Kaden wiped his face and sighed. It was so tempting to let his guard down. But the ping was there. That little sneaking sense of danger nearby. A monster. But this dog seemed completely normal. Then again, looks could be deceiving. Werewolves looked like humans most of the time, after all. “What made you think he was going to eat you? Did he ever look different? Or just like this?” The dog grumbled like it was tired of being told it was vicious when he just wanted some love. Kaden held his hand out again and the dog sniffed and snuffed before waddling over for pets, leaning into the hunter’s leg as he rubbed the critter’s side. There was no more ping, no more danger when touching the potential monster. Not like with Wrinkles way back when. This dog was… just a dog. Kaden went to stand up and the dog howled a little. “What?” Kaden asked, a smile breaking out on his face as he looked down. “What do you want?” The dog leapt up onto his knee, clearly not done with pets. Goofy grin plastered all over his face, Kaden reached down and scooped up the dog and started giving him more scritches and scratches, cooing a little at the old guy. “Look at you, you’re just a good boy. You are. Anyone would be lucky to have you, right? Yes.” Kaden nearly forgot that he wasn’t alone, that Effie was curled up, away from the dog. He coughed, cleared his throat, tried to find whatever professional dignity he might have left to find. “You want to pet him? He’s not going to eat you.” He finally noticed the gloves she was wearing. “Maybe without those. I mean, if you want. Up to you.”

“I told you I thought he was going to eat me,” Effie mumbled, still embarrassed by this whole situation. She looked up at him, about to ask why the dog would ever look different before she remembered that the poor animal control workers in this town probably saw more bullshit than anyone else. She deflated slightly. Maybe this would give him an actual break. “No, he always looked like that. I just -- I’m scared of hound dogs. I’m sorry.” She watched as the grumpy french man’s facade melted away and he scooped up all 65 pounds of basset hound off the ground, cooing and cuddling him. The surprise hit her first, and then the amusement. Under that lay something ugly. She was envious of his freedom to play with her dog. She could never do that, not without fear of frying his skin or worse. Effie sat on her counter watching with envious amusement until he seemed to realize that she was watching him. “Without the --” Effie looked down at her gloved hands, before looking at the dog apprehensively. “I’m having a bad hand day,” she said quietly. It wasn’t a lie, of course, she couldn’t tell them. It was just that every day was a bad hand day. Effie quietly pushed herself off the counter, this time landing on her feet as she cautiously approached. Slowly, very slowly, she reached out and patted the dog on the head.

Kaden shook his head and supposed he had to accept that this was just an over reaction. Unless… This was White Crest, after all. Maybe she had seen something real. Or maybe a phobid had enhanced her fear. Who knew. He could hear her heartbeat slowing ever slightly. It was still pounding pretty hard, she was clearly very nervous. Not that her words told him any different. “It’s alright. He’s not going to try and eat you. Pro--” Kaden shut his mouth so fast he nearly bit his tongue. How that word still crept into his vocabulary even now, he didn’t know. “Just trust me, he just wants some love. And I’ve got him so if anything happens, you’ll be okay. Alright?” Kaden wasn’t a very patient man at times, but something about working with animals made it all so much easier to just wait, breathe a moment, and take things a little slower. And it was clear she was trying. If she was going to keep this dog, she was going to have to get used to basic things. Like petting him. So patience it was. “Alright then, suit yourself,” he said and gave her a nod to come closer. Her hand reached out and touched the pup and immediately he tried to wriggle out of Kaden’s grasp, likely to lick Effie’s face. The hunter held tight and kept the dog from getting loose. “Easy there,” he said, keeping the canine steady. “Both of you need to take it slow, got it?” He gave the dog a stern look and in response, the hound looked up and licked Kaden’s nose instead. “Wonderful.” And his hands were full. Oh well. Guess dog slobber it was.

Embarrassment clung to her as Effie watched Kaden coax her to pet the dog. It was so… ridiculous. Was this what her life was? Being terrified of every living thing that came into her house? She pat the dog anyway, though, and he seemed not to mind how strange her hands felt with her gloves on. “Oh!” Effie pulled her hand back in surprise just as the dog licked Kaden’s nose. She froze, feeling the laugh building in her before she could stop it, and a second later she was covering her mouth to conceal the snickering. “Sorry, sorry.” The dog wiggled in his arms and looked down at him, a small smile spreading across her face. “I’m sorry I thought you were going to eat me,” she said to the dog, gently reaching out to pat the dog on the head again if only so he would stop licking Kaden’s face. He went to licking her gloves and rubbing his floppy eared head against her hand instead. She glanced up at Kaden too, her smile turning sheepish. “And for, um, making you kick my door in.”

#para #para kaden #kaden #wickedswriting #do i tag these with the title #i don't remember #ain't nothing but a hound dog #i'm too tired to look up how my tagging system works i will fix it later LOL

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ellanainthetardis · 3 years

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1, 4, 9, and 25 for the salty asks pls 💖 (for 25 if you could answer for hunger games and/or the 1OO that would be fun, along with any other fandom you want pls)

1 and 4 I just answered in a previous ask ;)

9 Most disliked character(s)? Why?

I hate Coin. XD I think MJ is self-explanatory about why but yeah that's the one character in thg I reaaaaally do not see a redemption side for. I'm sure she has one and hasn't shared with me yet but yeah... She's just so... black and white... She's just the bad guy masquerading as a good guy. It's obvious from the start and I have nothing against bad guys, I think Snow is an interesting (if horrible) character. Coin, I just... Nope.

Also I am not very fond of Gale but while I disliked him in the books I think my real dislike of him comes from the fandom's view of him (it played on my own opinions) and also because he gave me suuuuch a writer block for KTVS I might never forgive him for it XD

I used to not like Plutarch either. I still don't like him as a character but I found him really interesting so I wouldn't say he's my most disliked. I just think he's the ultimate slytherin and a real piece of work who has no morals XD I kind of enjoy writing him though.

In HP, one of the characters I can easily dislike is Dumbledore. It took me a long time to get there but with age and with every re-read it seems so obvious the whole thing is a huge set up for harry and... Yeah. It doesn't change anything that he loves harry, in teh end he's still raising him up for slaughter and I'm not a Gryffindor so I can't appreciate he does it for the right reason or the "greater good". I mean, at one point, I was known to enjoy some Dumbledore bashing fics XD

25 How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

For thg: I think the ending is solid. I wish she had remembered about Effie and obviously if it were me, the epilogue would have included hayffie but... XD I think the only change I would have liked was the mention of children. Or at least the way the children are mentioned. I would have either just made clear Kat and Peeta get together and leave to the reader's imagination if they had kids or not or maybe change the wording so it doesn't sound so... forced. Because ultimately, I don't think Peeta would force her into having them but the wording does make it look that way a little hence the whole decade old debate and yeah... But other than that I think the ending is coherent with the rest of the books you know...

It's not the perfect ending, none of the main characters have an immediate happy ever after but eventually they get to find peace and happiness and that's a good reflection of life. It's full of hope.

For HP: *singsong* I would have gotten rid of that epiiiilogue.

I hate the epilogue. I hate that everyone ends up with their childhood sweetheart as their forever partner. It's unrealistic.

Also, I'm not saying I'm an angst person, but i'm an angst person. And I think maybe if we wanted a more "adult" slash "realistic" ending one of the golden trio should have died. There are pleeeenty of heartbreaking death in HP but I can't help but feel like some of them were there as window-dressing. Idk. I hated how they did the final showdown in the movies too, it has to be said. and a part of me wished they had kept the scene with Draco handing Harry his wand but that's the shipper in me haha

I also hate one thing a lot in the HP ending. When Dumbledore alters his quote saying help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it to those who deserve it... This felt... Meh. Because I think it's doing a 180 to the original quote. Also there was a lot of slytherin bashing that goes against the general message of cooperation and unity but... Ok. XD

I mean... HP had its problems XD I would go so far as to say that while it's iconic, it's the fandom that made it that way. There are plenty of fictions that are better than hp out there. That's the thing JK never got. The fandom made HP what it is from what she gave us. She's not the ultimate queen anymore. I know lots of fics that are better than canon.

And now for the 100. Oh boy where should I start. Do I like the ending... I never saw the last of S6 and I never saw the last season although I am thouroughly spoiled. Let that be clear. My last episode has been the Marcus Kane demise. XD

How i would have end it...

Well, you know what? If I had to be realistic, I would say at the end of S5. S4 was meh even though it gave us Abby/Kane but S5 had a good ending with the Harper and Monty' s very emotional send off... That was a good end. Send the heroes toward a possible future... Leave it here.

Alternatively, what I was hoping for/would have loved to see is for a complete whipe out of S5. Get back to the end of S4, forget the bunker, send everyone back into space (with a viable solution maybe like the end of S5) and have Abby/Kane stay behind to launch the ship and die together. Reverse of S1 of a sort. *

What I would not have done is have Abby become what she's become, let Raven get soooo judgmental it wasn't even funny, force Abby to watch Marcus die the same way Jake did, have Clarke kill Bellamy, or, for that matter, destroy octavia's whole character development...

Last but not least: stargate. What was even Unending? XD That show deserved a better ending and I cannot lie. So yeah... Anything else but THAT episode. A good thing we got the movies...

#ask #percyjacksonfan3 #Caaaaaaan you feel the salt tonight #every time I talk about THAT show I get heat up XD

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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years

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Okay, here we go! Imma do my liveblog of The Hunger Games, Chapter One, for #THGagain :

I’ll put my thoughts underneath the cut so I don’t clog up the dash 🥳

Okay but right off the bat, Katniss says her mattress cover is rough 🥺. I don’t know, this just made me sad all of a sudden.

So okay, but the fact that Prim had a bad dream and climbed in with their mother? I don’t know if that indicates that Prim still sees their mother as a source of comfort whereas Katniss can’t let herself feel the same way or if it’s just because she didn’t want to wake Katniss.

Maybe it’s supposed to be that Prim is too naive to understand that their mother is mentally fragile? Since in Mockingjay, she says “I know there’s only so much mother can hear,” or something like that, as a way to prove she’s not a little kid anymore sooo. I don’t know. Just some thoughts.

Katniss is shady towards mama right off the bat 🤣. Katniss is shady no matter what though. It’s what makes her narration sound like a teenage girl.

If Katniss is so anti-social though, who’s telling her her mother was once beautiful?

As a cat lover, I take offense to Katniss’ insults to the poor one eyed furball 😭.

So coal miners are also women? I suspected as much but I didn’t realize it was explicitly stated? So if Katniss’ life had gone differently, would she have become a coal miner?

So none of the houses in Twelve get electricity outside of a couple hours a night? Or just in the Seam?

I always forget that Katniss had nightmares even before the games 😔😔😔. Nightmares of her father “being blown to bits.” She has a vivid way with words.

Her father made her bow 🥺🥺. I knew that. I just thought I should mention it again. She uses the bow her father handmade throughout the series 🥺.

Also she says Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to “the few of them who hunt”. A few is more than two. Who else besides Katniss and Gale go hunting?

I like that she randomly starts mumbling to herself 🤣🤣🤣

Once upon a time, Katniss was outspoken apparently. But she mentions that she has to hold her tongue even at home because Prim may repeat her words. I don’t know why, but Prim seems immature for twelve years old. At twelve, in today’s society, you’re going into sixth grade. A sixth grader should know how to keep a secret or hold her tongue.

Gale says she never smiles but in the woods but isn’t that the only place they really spend time together? 🤣

“I kind of liked that lynx but I liked the money I got for it’s pelt more” 😂😂😂

An arrow inside bread. How fortuitous 😭😭😭

I do love that Katniss’ first introduction of Gale is “he could be my brother”

“But we’re at least not that closely related” 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

“Katniss, get off your cousin”

Even though the merchant class is smaller

Meaning they’re even more inbred

And Katniss is half merch-

Okay I’m done with this line of thinking 🤭😅

So backwoods 🤣

So did Mrs. Everdeen’s parents disown her? Or what? Do they still own that apothecary shop? Does Katniss occasionally walk by her grandparents in the town square? Like I’d like more context here, Suz 🙃

Aww, I always feel so bad for Katniss when she talks about her mother abandoning her 😭😩🥺

“But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type” me either. Me either 🤧.

This may be why I so closely relate to her when she’s angry.

And why when people in the book say she needs to be more forgiving (ala Haymitch) I’m like “no”

I’m sorry but on second glance (more like 8th glance because I’ve read this chapter since I was 16) it’s so obvious Gale was hitting on her here 😅.

She’s oblivious 🤣🤣🤣

As she should be 😆

So later on, in the second book at least, Katniss definitely has some high respect for Hazelle Hawthorne. But here it seems to be like she’s implying Hazelle and her own mother are useless without her and Gale, and like they wouldn’t be able to provide for themselves. Maybe Hazelle just wasn’t fleshed out to Suzanne when she wrote the first book, the same way the love triangle you can tell if you look is sort of just tossed in there in the first book too? Anyways, just a thought.

That line about Prim being the only person Katniss is certain that she loves is sweet (it’s actually one of my favorite lines in the series) but it’s also so shady at the same time 😅😅😅. Like girl, you’re not sure if you love your mother or even your best friend (in a platonic way)?

Katniss makes a point in mentioning it took a long time for her and Gale to become friends. And I feel like that has been simplified a lot along the way, but it never really sounded to me like Katniss and Gale were besties for as long as most people think. The movies are a lot to blame for this, I know.

I don’t actually think Katniss is truly jealous here of the other girls wanting Gale? I feel like if she were she would have unconsciously insulted the school girls who were into him instead of just outright saying she was jealous, just not for romantic reasons. But who knows 🤷🏼‍♀️.

It was already mentioned earlier but I think Suzanne made a continuity error here, when Gale and Katniss mentioned fishing at the lake. The lake is a place Katniss explicitly mentioned in Catching Fire, to be private between her and her father. She even specially said she never took Gale there. I feel much better about my own writing continuity errors now.

Okay, both Katniss and Gale are so dumb. I would never prepare a feast for after the reaping. They’re just jinxing themselves. I have OCD really bad no one come for me.

I like how The Hob is a black market that’s literally just sitting in broad daylight 🤣🤣🤣.

Katniss just referenced being attacked by dogs... um I’m sorry, do we have no fear of rabies in this universe? 😭😭🙃🙃😐😐😅😅

Katniss : “me and the mayor’s daughter aren’t friends, we just hang out all the time at school, eat lunch together, sit by each other and are always partners. But weren’t not friends.” 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I like the mention of hair ribbons for the rich girl. This is just the fic writer in me seeping into my reading.

Gale and Madge’s little dispute ...

I see why they get shipped together 😅. They’re both just taking swipes at each other here.

Awww, Katniss sticking up for Madge, even though Madge is the privileged one 😭. Katniss has such a pure heart.

The entire point of the Madge/Gale interaction though was just to set up the class divide explanation in Katniss’ head to the reader.

But my Peeta centric heart also picks up on the comments in Katniss’ head of how unlikely it is to be chosen at the reaping when you’re a town kid.

In other words, Peeta had a slim to none chance of being chosen and still was.

Now I think of it, so was Prim...

That was just an unlucky reaping for the kids without tesserae 🙃

Also it reminds me of every fic I ever read that mentioned a conspiracy in the reapings and how the kids aren’t actually chosen at random but anyways I digress

I feel Gale though, with the whole idea of knowing something isn’t this person’s fault and there’s nothing they could do but still being so angry at them because it isn’t fair that you have to suffer and they don’t.

My anger issues are really showing 😅😅😅.

Honestly though, if Katniss is saying Gale on a normal day is rational about the class divide not being merchants faults, then clearly his issues with Peeta later on really were just of jealousy and not because he was a merchant vs Seam.

I just feel like I’ve seen that around and I’m not really convinced

In my interpretation of the character, Katniss’ reasons for not sharing in Gale’s rage comes from exhaustion after a lifetime of powerlessness. Some people (re: females more often) just get worn out about the things they cannot change and can’t even let it get inside their brain because there’s nothing they could do about it.

I mean, she is a more understanding person than Gale but I feel like so much of her character is already so tired right from chapter one.

Okay, just a pointless rambling thought

“Where something pretty” these children are so shady 🤣🤣🤣 that’s a line I would say though

The fact that her like 42 year old mother still fits in a dress she wore at like 20 is really a testament to how hungry they are 🤧🤧🤧

Okay but I’m not trying to pick on her mother, but when they were starving, why did either she or Katniss sell the fancy clothes from her apothecary days? I’m nitpicking I know. I’m a nitpicker.

Also good for Katniss trying to forgive her mother.

God knows how hard it is for me to try and forgive people.

Literally, God knows.

I like that Katniss didn’t disagree with Prim saying she’s beautiful, just that she doesn’t usually look this way 😂😂😂.

I just know my sister wouldn’t let me not take tesserae if this was us. She’d be like “you’ll be fine, four entries? Please. We can have more food for an entire year, don’t be selfish.” 😅😅😅

I feel like noting that Katniss and Prim’s age gap isn’t that significant? Four years? That’s not that large. Not even at 12 and 16.

They herd these children off like they’re .... pigs going to a slaughter... 🤭🤭🤭

Katniss casually stating “I could be shot on a daily basis” 😐😐😐

Katniss and Gale agreeing they’d rather be shot than starve is honestly so sad but lowkey sounds like something two teenagers would say. They should have put dialogue like this in the movies.

I didn’t even remember District 12 has 8,000 people.... why’d I think they only had 3,000????

I need to update some of my fics with this information

Katniss just said “televised by the state”. I’ve never heard her call any region a state before?

I like that Katniss calls Effie’s grin scary and white, because tons of people (i.e me) whiten our teeth in today’s society. And to Katniss and probably all of Twelve that’s creepy. I think it’s weird to Europeans too but l digress.

Also do the people in this district brush and floss, they never seem to mention it in the books, ya know?

Honestly the idea of the hunger games sounded cooler without Songbirds and Snakes telling us it was just some dumb guy’s idea that no one ever thought would come true.

Aww, sugar is a delicacy 🤧🤧🤧

I knew already that but lemme fully feel that sentiment for a moment okey

Umm I’m sorry, did Mayor Undersee just casually state Lucy Gray Baird’s name every year and we never knew it? Did Snow just allow this? Seems suspish

Also the idea of Katniss being her distant relative and hearing the name and not knowing the connection... and yeah, anyways. I got wayyyy ahead of myself and off track sorry

Why would Haymitch hug Effie? I’m sorry, but Hayffie having a secret affair at some point in all the years they worked together seems more likely than I thought.

I mean, Katniss never mentions Haymitch hugging anyone besides her and Peeta when they just almost died, are about to die or that one time Katniss was sobbing because she thought Peeta was gonna die.

You know what though? I like that at this moment, when the name is about to be announced, Katniss worried about herself. She spends so much time worrying for her sister, babying her sister, mothering her sister, she deserves ten seconds of worrying for her own safety.

Of course, said sister is the one chosen. Ironic considering the whole encounter with Madge.

Okay, I think that concludes my thoughts for chapter one of The Hunger Games!

#thgagain #I’m not tagging anything else because this is so long I’m so sorry if anyone tries to read this mess 😅😅😅😅😅🤧🤧🤧🤧

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andsmile · 4 years

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i'm late, i hope you're still in the mood for CE. warning: i have too much to say. first of all, i'm so glad i decided to ask because you made me remember why CE was so damn good. when you said "they had such a deeper understanding of each other, a connection that was bigger than love" and "if effy is fire, cook rises from it", you said it all. is it true that the end of the fucking world is a CE shipper?

for some time i had felt somewhat guilty for how hard i shipped CE but... interesting ships aren't defined by "healthiness" (a simplistic way of thinking about fiction) and, like, we were watching skins, their relationships were always supposed to be a little fucked up. some of the (arguably) "healthiest" ships were jalchris and richgrace and the writers literally killed them.

do you think CE could have happened differently than it did? it was perfect as it was but. is there a scenario where effy could have felt something with cook?

I’m gonna answer you in parts and yes, i’m always in the mood for ceffy! 🤩 i’m not sure if the end of the fucking world author is a ceffy shipper but they’ve given me the BIGGEST ceffy vibes ever (except for the sexual element that like, obviously ce had it down lol).

yeah, ceffy was pretty unhealthy in a way that both cook and effy were fucked up characters, but i don’t necessarily think they were harmful to each other? they were more harmful to themselves, in a way, and they definitely enabled their toxic way to go through life--live fast, die young teas--but listen...... skins was a show about how life is fucked up and how you should enjoy it as much as you can while you’re living it. it wasn’t about growing or getting better? it wasn’t about them becoming adults and making better choices (the adults were all fucked up, and them as adults didn’t really make better choices either, as seen in s7), it was about how much can you love, live, and laugh, and how does life affect you and never lets you forget who you are.

i do think skins never had completely healthy ships. i think tony and michelle grew into it (unhealthy at first, became better later, but tony had to literally lose everything to understand he had it all) / jalchris and hardbecks like you said were killed as they grew / thomas and pandora learned how to forgive and forget / jj found someone who was good for him etc / mini and alo learned how to choose each other and become a family!

but with effy and her ships, that was never supposed to be the case? the idea around effy’s character is that she destroyed everything she touched.

the only thing she didn’t destroy was cook (and tony). and i don’t think she didn’t not feel anything for cook, she felt it. it was just not the love that’s really lovely, it was something else. he was her friend, she trusted him, she wanted him (girl lusted over him a lot) and she’s felt so many emotions for him, but like she said in s1, “it’s conceptual, you can’t see it”, and i don’t know. i think ceffy’s relationship was the only thing that wouldn’t have sent effy insane...

...however, she was afraid that she’d not be able to give back what he wanted from her and what she wanted to give freddie.

i do see them happening, though. in a lot of scenarios. i do think that after going to jail effy post s7 could’ve just called cook and he picks her up and he’s like, where to princess? and she goes just drive and they make a living out of conning stupid people and partying until, at some point, she finds a place where she wants to stay and cook realizes he doesn’t need to run anymore.

#re: skins uk #re: ceffy #anon #reply #i'm getting to part 2 soon!

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sammysreelreviews · 5 years

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Counting Down The 10 Most Shocking Moments From My Favorite TV Shows

So I just finished Jane the Virgin and it inspired me to make a list of moments in television that had me fucking SHOOK. Maybe some other things happened in the show that were just as crazy but these are the moments that affected me personally. This list was so spontaneous but it might be my favorite one cause it was a nice trip down memory lane. Any who, here are the moments that have fucked me up along the years!

WARNING: LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!

10. Gossip Girl: The Dark Prince

Let’s be clear Gossip Girl stopped being the show it was by season 4 by adding insane story lines but one that was realistic was Queen B marrying a real life prince! Although there are some minor hiccups Blair finally has the dream wedding she always wanted. Unfortunately everything comes crashing down when Louis basically tells her that she means nothing to him and the marriage is now just for show. This SHOOK me cause Louis was such a good guy until that exact moment. Ugh the moment he whispered those vile words to Blair her heart dropped and so did mine.

9. Elite: So who’s actually dead?

From the beginning it was clear that one of the promiscuous teens of Elite was going to die it’s just not who you’d expect! In the first episode you find out that it’s none other than Marina! She was such a big part in the first episode I didn’t think her character would be the one to kick the bucket. Yes I am aware that the real mystery of the show is who’s the murderer but Marina being dead threw me for a loop.

8. On My Block: The Quinceañera from Hell.

On My Block is supposed to be funny and it was until the last fucking episode of season one. Ruby decides to throw his crush Olivia a Quinceañera and everything goes smoothly, she even gets to face time her parents that got deported, until Cesar’s past comes to crash the party. Let me explain. Cesar finally joined his brother’s gang and had the job of executing Latrelle who’s from an opposing gang. Cesar is too sweet for his own good and lets him live. Unfortunately Latrelle shows up to Olivia’s Quinceañera, uninvited, and fires at Cesar but hits Ruby and Olivia in the process. In the end of the episode two ambulances are on their way to the hospital and ones lights go off indicating one of them has died. At the beginning of season two we finally find out that Olivia has passed which is sad and like talk about the worst birthday party ever!

7. Pretty Little Liars: Boo!

There were literally 100 different A’s on this god forsaken show but the final A reveal was definitely the best. Spencer and Ezra have been kidnapped by A in a weird underground whatever thing and Spencer wakes up to her reflection only it’s not her reflection ITS HER TWIN. The elite PLL fans like myself always had theories of Spencer having a twin but when it actually happened I couldn’t believe my eyes. When Alex puts her hand down and says “boo!”... chills literal fucking chills.

6. Vampire Diaries: Dead girls walking.

I could honestly make a list of the top ten shocking moments from the Vampire Diaries alone but this one had 15 year old me shaking in my Ugg boots. Jeremy’s first love Vicki died in season one, which was like WILD for 2009 let me tell you, and his other lover Anna also died. In the season two finale we see two shadows walking around following Jeremy in his house and they’re none other than Vicki and Anna looking straight at Jeremy and even speaking to him. At this point in the show people coming back from the dead was unheard of and this is why it beat everything else.

5. Dark: What REALLY happened that night?

Ok so Dark has a lot of WTF moments like the entire show is a total mindfuck but in season 2 they answered a question and I was not prepared for the answer. Let’s back track realllll quick. Mikkel goes missing in the woods one night and no one finds him BUT Mikkel is alive and well he’s just in the year 1986! In the cave he went through there was a wormhole that took him to the past but the question was, how the fuck did he even end up there!? In the last episode of season two Jonas, Mikkel’s son (I know it’s confusing) goes back in time to stop Mikkel from disappearing to make everything right. Jonas talks to his dad, adult Mikkel, and Mikkel drops the bomb that Jonas was the one to lead him to the fucking wormhole in the first place!!! Everything about this show is absolutely insane but I mean this shit was INSANE. I literally could not believe what I was hearing and honestly neither could Jonas.

4. Jane the Virgin: Have a nice day bae!

Michael begins his day going to take a test and he doesn’t come back. I am so team Michael just so y’all know so I loved the flashbacks of the fair with Jane this episode. What I DIDN’T like was the end of this episode. When Michael “died” I dead ass did not watch the rest of season 3 until it was streaming on Netflix. I sobbed so bad and then at the end of the episode when Jane gets the phone call that Michaels “dead” WOW that shit HURT. Thankfully I decided to keep watching the show cause at the season 4 finale Michael is alive and well but has a little amnesia. I literally will never forgive the writers for ripping my heart out and stomping on it.

3. American Horror Story: Running in circles.

Violet tried to kill herself and Tate saves her by making her throw up except, she didn’t actually survive. Violet is depressed and stays home and it’s not until she tries to leave the house do you realize she’s actually been dead for a couple episodes. Its heartbreaking cause she’ll be stuck in that house forever but the moment you see her dead corpse was absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking at the same time.

2. Skins: Where’s Cook’s main hoe?

When Skins came back for a 7th season wrapping up the lives of Effy, Cassie, and Cook I thought we were gonna get some closure but what I got from Cook’s episodes was very unexpected. There’s honestly a lot going on in Skins Rise but Cook’s second episode has him facing off his psychotic boss Louie. Let me give a little backstory. Cook deals drugs for Louie but Louie made Cook drive his girlfriend Charlie around. Cook being Cook fucks Charlie while simultaneously cheating on his own girlfriend Emma which makes it super awkward when the three of them runaway together to get away from a psychotic Louie. Before Cook absolutely beats the shit out of Louie he’s in the woods looking for Emma and he fucking finds her in a clearing HANGING on a tree!!! Like WHAT THE FUCK!!! Skins has never been THAT brutal and I honestly think it was the most jaw dropping moment that ever happened on the show. God I love Skins but I did NOT love that death like can my baby Cook just be happy!?!

1. Degrassi: The Next Generation: A night to forget.

I was 13 the first time I got my heart broken, the perpetrator, Degrassi: The Next Generation. I was OBSESSED with this show I watched it from the very beginning. JT was my literal MAN like I loved him so much and when they CRUELLY killed him off I legit didn’t want to go to school the following Monday. JT dying is number one because it was my first big TV death and I’ll never forget it along with Liberty’s blood curdling screams.

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everlarkficexchange · 5 years

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Unmasked ~ Twenty-One

Written by: ~ M ~

Prompt #88

Rating: E (Explicit) This fic will contain consensual sexual content; mild language; discussions of injuries, illness, and amputations in a historical setting; discussions of miscarriage; discussions of minor character suicide; references to non consensual sexual situations; minor character death.

My thanks to the moderators of @everlarkficexchange for always running an entertaining event, and for playing along with a little fun and mystery.

Now, dear readers, a bit of fun. I thank you for allowing me to write and share with you from behind a mask, for embracing this story wholeheartedly despite not knowing my identity. A few of you have wondered at it, and since we approach the end of this story, I have a small game for you to play. At the end of each chapter from now until the final one, I will provide a clue. You must use the clue to hunt for a word in the text of the chapter itself. Gather the words, hold onto them, for they will provide the final clue to the puzzle.

Understanding that I cannot control your actions, I do ask that you use caution in discussing any theories. If you believe you have solved the puzzle before the end, I ask that you hold your silence and allow others to enjoy it as well. This is meant to be fun, so in the modern parlance… No spoilers please!

Please enjoy the twenty-first chapter of this adventure. Previous installments can be found here. Regards,

~ M ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~ Chapter 21 ~~

Over the next several days, I immerse myself in tasks and avoid the concerned eyes of my family. Between the many guests, the festival, and Maysilee, I run myself ragged and am grateful to do so. If I am too busy to think, then I cannot think of Sir Robert’s words. If I cannot dwell on them, then I cannot insult my dearest friend by begging her to tell me it isn’t true. Such fickle hearts that stray so easily with the slightest bit of doubt! I do not want these thoughts in my heart.

Throughout each day, my mother has plates of food and tea sent to me, to entice me to eat more – ginger root tea in the morning, a dandelion tea in the afternoon, chamomile in the evening. My father expresses concern and I wave it off as fatigue.

“Too many guests to attend to, nothing more,” I assure him with a smile. I can see that he does not believe me, and yet Haymitch and Effie are kind enough to provide a timely distraction that keeps him from persisting. He has no choice but to let it go for the moment when he is faced with the same quandary that I hide behind.

My mind and my heart, torn apart between what I believe, and the distance between us, do not allow me to confess my fears, my shame, to anyone. Was I truly fooling myself, believing Peeta and I happy and in love? It would not be the first time my heart misled me so. The man in the mask lurks in the corners, taunting me with my past gullibility. I try not to think of him, yet the harder I try, the more present he becomes in my thoughts.

Madge worries over me, I know she does. I can see it in her eyes, and yet I cannot look too closely nor for too long. I know Sir Robert’s insinuations to be false, against all I know of her character, and yet I cannot seem to shake their hold. They creep into the darkest, most fearsome corners of my mind, an invasive vine of doubt clouding out the light of all reason. The more I fight them, the more they seem to take root. My own mind has become my worst enemy.

At night, I find no rest. Terrifying images of swirling reds and dancing flames. A leering man in a mask and one who seduces with sweet words and sweeter kisses. Betrayal and pernicious lies that leave me gasping and crying, reaching for the companion of my bed and of my life who is not there.

I long for him. I wish him here to hold me and know that I cannot wish that until I gain control of and evict these doubts from my heart.

Early in the mornings, before I rise, I lay in our bed and read each of Peeta’s letters again, perusing the pages of the sketch book meant only for me, hoping for some sort of solid proof to uproot the gnawing fears. He took his other sketch book with him, or I would peruse that one as well. While the early letters help, the latter, more impersonal ones only serve to clear a space for the fear to grow further into my heart. I’ve no reason, no accounting for his growing distance from me and it feeds the fear.

Rain arrives and either cancels or drives the festivities indoors, such as they are. The day before Peeta is meant to return, I wake late, to a near silent house. I grumble to myself about being left abed too long and force myself into motion. I’ve much to see done today and do not intend to waste time.

I work and see to the household until I finally feel that I have earned some rest. I think I need solace and comfort, and the only place I know for certain I can find that now is in my mother and father’s embrace.

In searching for my parents, I discover a rather odd sight and halt in the hallway, peering through the door to Maysilee’s room at the pair playing on the floor.

“Katniss! So good to see you looking better. How are you feeling?” Delly says and Maysilee hurries over to hug me. “Won’t you join us?”

“Yes! Come play with us, Miss Katniss!” Maysilee pleads. I couldn’t possibly refuse her, much as I would like to avoid Delly right now. I agree and sit on the rug next to Maysilee, dutifully playing the role assigned to me and falsely deepening my voice to that of a man’s as I accept tea on behalf of the doll.

Maysilee giggles and then yawns. We play for a while longer until she curls up in my lap. I comb my fingers through her thick, wavy blonde hair and smile contentedly as she sucks her thumb, drifting off into sweet girlhood dreams. I should move her to the bed, yet she looks so content, I hate to wake her.

Only, this means that I am left in uncomfortable silence with Delly and no idea how to speak to her. She clears her throat and seems determined to initiate the task for me.

“I must thank you again, Katniss, and your family…for welcoming us so kindly.”

“You are Peeta’s sister now, that makes you family,” I say, keeping my eyes focused on Maysilee.

“Yes, well. Even family can become a complicated tangle sometimes, no matter how much one loves them.” For some reason, this makes me chuckle. I appreciate Delly’s candor. Somehow, she does not sound bitter about it, and I envy her that. When I lift my eyes to her, she is smiling, arranging the skirts on a doll as though she hasn’t a care in the world. For some reason, she reminds me of Effie and I realise I have been remiss in so many of my manners.

“And I must congratulate you on your nuptials. I do not believe I have had the chance and apologise for my tardy felicitations,” I say.

Delly’s smile wavers and she turns watery eyes to mine. “Thank you. Truly, Katniss. I worried that perhaps you might hate me and I could not bear the thought of it.”

“Why would you care if I hated you?” I ask before my mind can stop the question. I blame the comfort of Maysilee’s warm body asleep in my lap, the steady rhythm of her breathing and the soft pattering of the rain on the roof.

“We are now sisters in way…are we not? But primarily it is because Peeta loves you so.” Her answer surprises me. For a moment, my fingers halt their motions. Maysilee shifts and whimpers. I continue my attentions to her and Delly looks away, out the window towards the rain. “When he first spoke to me about the lady he had helped in the rain one day, I had such hope. It had been so long since I’d seen light such as that in his eyes. He will not…he will not speak to me of what happened while he was with the infantry and yet I know it eats away at him. He came home with a… a darkness in his soul that I did not know how to touch.”

“You know him so well then?”

“As you know the Countess,” Delly says with a quirk of her lips and an almost amused look. “He may be several years my elder, but we were friends since I could walk and he was in many ways my protector when we were children. I think our parents thought perhaps we might marry one day, but I had always thought of him as my brother. Even if I hadn’t, fate,” she sighs, a heavy sound at odds with her usually cheerful disposition “Well fate decided otherwise, and she does know far better than I, in this case especially.”

Such a pleasant way to describe what happened to them, and yet I am drawn into the tale yet again, much as I was when Peeta first told it.

“Anyways, when he asked me to replace your boots and he was so…particular with the whole thing, so troublesome in pestering me for details afterwards, even though I insisted that I never share the conversations of my customers. ‘Twould be a breach of their confidence to do so!”

I cannot help but smile at her indignation, at her conviction in maintaining the trust of those whose footwear she fashions.

“And what did you think of me after that meeting?”

“Oh, that you would be a perfect fit for Peeta. You were so strong, so very brave and yet kind. I could see in an instant why he was taken with you, but then so soon after, I saw him in Capitol. He said that Robert had begun courting you and…” she pauses and glances back out the window. I wish to scream at her to continue and yet she does not. I think then of what Peeta said, about how Robert had proposed to her several years ago, and she refused, afraid it would bring him down in the world and he would resent her for it. It strikes me then that this appears to be precisely what has happened.

Oh poor Delly, to have her heart slashed so.

I continue to caress Maysilee’s hair for courage and find my voice. “It must have been terribly upsetting for you. To think that Sir Robert’s affections had wandered.”

“Forgive me, Katniss, but that is not what led me to what I did. You must think me so fickle.”

“In truth, I am still attempting to discern what I think of you.”

“So very bluntly honest. Just as Robert said,” she appraises me with a smile and shakes her head. “I did not think Robert’s affections had wandered. He hardly spoke of you at all, only of facing what was expected of him, his duty to his family name. Marriage, family, the pride of the Marquis. No, it was not Robert’s words that drove me back to him but Peeta’s.”

“Peeta’s?” I ask, even more confused.

“You will think me terrible. Robert has always been fond of attentions and an incorrigible flirt,” she says this rather fondly while I think she should wish to strangle him for such behaviour. “There were always at least a dozen ladies hoping to be Mrs. Robert Mellark and while he could fall in and out of love with all of them on any given day, none of them showed any advancement or sign of success in securing him. He always returned to me, in letters most of the time, since we could so rarely be together. Until you.”

“He did not love me,” I say with a shake of my head.

“No, he did not, as it turns out. But Peeta did,” Delly says with conviction that almost frightens me. “He did and he still does.”

“That still does not explain why you eloped with Sir Robert,” I argue. “Perhaps you had them confused.”

“Oh no, I could always tell the difference, even before the scars. And of course it explains why. You must understand, Robert was the only one in that family to open their heart to Peeta when he needed someone the most. Ethan and Henry did eventually, but it took years to do so.” This much, I already know to be true, by Peeta’s own admission. “Peeta will forever be bound to love Robert for this. He will spend his life attempting to reciprocate in some fashion. As part of that, Peeta would never allow himself something he wanted – be it a toy, a sweet stolen from the kitchens, or the love and attentions of a certain person – if Robert wanted the same thing.”

I stare at her with wide eyes, understanding that Peeta’s loyalty to Robert would lead him to sacrifice a great deal. It then dawns on me precisely what sacrifice Delly refers to in this case, a chance at something – or rather someone. My cheeks burn with the realisation.

“Peeta wanted to be the one courting you. He wanted you… so very desperately, but Robert seemed to want the same thing.”

And so Peeta would not even take the chance, withdrawing to a position of observance, to protect his brother who falls in love too easily, to ensure that the fortune hunting lady Robert had chosen to pursue in earnest would not break his brother’s heart, even as our courtship, such as it was, broke Peeta’s. How very sad indeed.

“It was Peeta’s certainty that you and Robert would be married soon, Peeta’s refusal to even entertain the thought of courting you when he so clearly wished to, that convinced me I was about to lose Robert forever. That is what drove me back to Robert. I had to know if he seriously intended to marry you. I always regretted spurning his first proposal, even though I was right to do so, I…oh Katniss I am so sorry. I was terribly selfish in running away with him.”

“Well,” I say with my throat constricted and my head pounding. “Not entirely. You did save us both from a loveless marriage.”

She stares at me and then begins to laugh. It is quite a cheerful sound, and I find then that I am rather fond of Delly. There is much that needs fixing in this family, and that includes the sadness I still see lingering in her eyes, even as she laughs. If she truly loves Robert, rakish ways and all, then she deserves some form of happiness with him.

“Oh look!” Delly exclaims cheerfully. “The rain has finally stopped!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain only clears for an hour. Not even long enough for me to strengthen my fragile grasp on my doubts and pull them from the muddy quagmire my mind has become. It stops just long enough for Maysilee to wake and decide she wishes to play in the gardens. It stops just long enough for the post to arrive and nearly destroy what little gains I have made with Delly’s words, her belief in Peeta’s love for me. Someone else’s belief in our love is not enough. I need to believe it for myself, and I do not seem to have the talent for hoping and believing today.

There is no letter for me from Peeta. There is, however, a letter written in his hand addressed to Lady M. Charmaigne. My heart clenches as I deliver it into Madge’s palm. She smiles, bright and beautiful, and turns from me.

“Maysilee! Darling, Mister Peeta has answered your letter. Come and I will read it to you.”

The shock and relief register, sweeping through me so quickly that I’ve no chance to guard my expression. Of course. Maysilee asked to write to him and he has responded. This is no secret love letter to Madge.

“Katniss? Are you ill?” Madge asks.

“I…”

I cannot answer. It all overwhelms me, and I have spent so much effort fighting it, that I find I have none left. Madge asks Sae to take Maysilee to the parlour to read her letter instead, and I am left in the soggy gardens with my dear friend and a storm of feelings I cannot seem to sort. It is too much, building and building over days, weeks even with little to no release.

“I am so sorry. Madge, I…please forgive me. I cannot face him alone much longer, Madge. Something is…wrong with me,” I whisper between crazed gasps for air.

She takes my elbow and guides me to a bench in the garden. We sit and I am struck by the memory of just such a scene in Peeta’s sketchbook, rendered with beauty and care. Both of us, lovingly drawn.

“Who? Sir Robert?”

I nod and stare across the neatly tended flower beds, towards the cursedly empty lane. No riders. No Peeta.

“Why not?” Madge asks and there is a strange sort of anger in her voice.

“Because he…” I cannot even say it.

“Because he broke your engagement? Katniss can you really still mourn such a thing?”

“No. No, it isn’t that,” I say and turn to look at my friend. The blaze in her eyes frightens me.

“As it should not be. I know his elopement left you in a very awkward position for a time, and that your pride was hurt, perhaps even your heart to a small degree, but honestly Katniss. You have to let him go. Had Sir Robert not eloped with Delly, you would be married to him right now!”

I make a wretched noise of disgust and she laughs. Then I laugh and tears burst free, a torrent of them. I am no longer able to contain them. “And it would be a wretched marriage!” I moan through my tearful laughter.

“Completely wretched! You could never be happy with anyone so inconstant. And you would not have your Peeta then.”

Doubt flares back up and I eye my smiling friend for signs. Oh God above, why am I falling prey to such doubt? I know my husband and my friend better than that. Only that…he has deceived me before. The truth slices through me, swift and deadly as a sword.

“My Peeta,” I whisper and she nods, no sign of envy nor deceit in her cool blue eyes. Only the openness of my friend. And I can no longer contain it. “I am so confused right now. He said things…about you and Peeta and the strangeness of our family here…” I trail off and Madge shakes her head, brow creased in her own sort of confusion. “He said you would not linger here if there were not a reason… that you would find another husband post haste, and he does not know about what happened after your marriage yet implies the same sort of… arrangement. I know you would not betray me so and I shouldn’t even ask but–”

“Oh,” she says, her eyes widening in understanding and then narrowing. “What evidence could he possibly give for that?”

“He said you have the look of a woman in love.”

“And you believed him?”

“No,” I say and my convictions slowly begin to return to me. I do not know why, only that I draw from her expression the strength to voice my fears and begin to banish them. “No, I believe you have the look of a woman who is finally happy, and it does not require love.”

“I am happy, and it did require love, but not necessarily from a man.” Her words are shocking and calming and so welcome all at once. Everything I needed to hear and I regret not speaking to her sooner. “You know I have reasons for not pursuing another marriage, but that does not mean my life is without love. I love you, Katniss, as you love me. You are my dearest friend, and you have so generously and lovingly welcomed myself and Maysilee into your home and your life without expectation. I linger here because Everdeen has become our home, and all of you our family. Your family – Primrose and your parents – I have always loved along with you, and I confess that yes, I count Peeta now as part of my family as well.

“Your husband has been…extraordinary with Maysilee. I cannot deny that she sees him as a sort of father figure, but it does not follow that there would be an amorous relation between myself and him. The very idea is absurd! You know how he loves you. I would hope that you know how much I love you! Of course I look to be in love and happy. For I am happy here, and there are many people whom I love dearly. As do you…”

She tilts her head and examines me and I burst into more tears. Everything wells up out of me onto her shoulder as we sit in the garden in the late afternoon sunshine. I cry and pour out my heart. The love I feel for Peeta and our child whose existence inside me I grow more certain of with every day that passes. His sister and mother and his gradually chilling letters. Delly’s words and Sir Robert’s. My anger with myself for falling prey to such pernicious lies.

“Oh my darling friend,” Madge coos and holds onto me. “You are with child! No wonder you are so uneasy.”

“What?” I ask and break free of her embrace. She smiles at me, the expression wistful. “I thought pending motherhood was meant to be a happy condition!”

“In many ways it is, but the fears are real too. I felt it too, with Maysilee. All the fear and the doubt about the future, my ability to love her when I felt no love for her father, not even affection. I barely tolerated him. The terror that I would be a wretched mother. How could I possibly protect her from the worst of the world? And the fear of what our future held for us, it felt… It felt…”

“As old and as immutable as time,” I whisper and she nods.

“Yes. Exactly.” Our eyes meet and she sniffles a little. “I should be angry that you would even entertain the idea of my betraying you so. Or the idea that Peeta could betray you so, but I understand it is not he nor I nor even yourself causing such doubt, but Sir Robert. His presence and your history with him has naturally caused much discord. Even your father seems ill at ease lately. But you know me, and you do know Peeta as well. You must silence the doubt. Only one day more. Then Peeta will be home, and I know you will see in his eyes exactly what you need to see.”

I clasp her hand in mine and squeeze. She leans her head on my shoulder and I sigh happily. It is good to know my friend is exactly as I believed her to be. Quiet, kind, and brave, with a strength to rival any fortress.

“Thank you, Madge.”

“You must come to me sooner with these fears, so they do not torment you so, especially now that you are to be a mother.” I nod in agreement. We sit in silence then. We could continue like this for an age, until Sir Robert wanders into the garden.

“Ladies, I hate to interrupt, but your charming daughter calls for you, my Lady Hargrove.” He sweeps a bow and smiles at us. I stiffen, but Madge squeezes my arm as she stands. She turns to me and gives me a true smile.

“You know what is real, in your heart. Silence the rest,” she says and I nod. Her eyes flash with a bright sort of fire and I draw more strength from her. The strength to stand as she departs and to face Sir Robert.

“Well this is pleasant. Such a charming garden, a lovely lady for company.” My heart hammers in its duplicitous dance and I am quite tired of my body treating me thus.

I squeeze my eyes shut and attempt to control it. This is not my husband. Why my body insists on responding like it is, I do not know. He has stolen the face of my love and plants doubts in my head where they do not belong. I laugh inside at the thought and Maysilee’s indignant tone when she voiced it a few days ago.

“I am glad to see you enjoying yourself today, Mrs. Mellark. We have all been rather concerned for you. My wife seems to think our presence has caused you some distress.”

With my eyes shut, his voice sharpens in my mind, the inflections wrong. An unfamiliar scent reaches me. Wrong. Wrong. All wrong, my mind and my heart protest, just as Maysilee did, and finally, my body listens.

When I open my eyes, I am able to smile at him, although my face feels strained in doing so.

He stands with feet braced apart in a confident pose, a tentative smile on his lips. Good. He should be wary of me.

“I cannot imagine what would give her such an idea,” I say but the sarcasm of my tone seems lost on Sir Robert.

“Has my brother had opportunity to enjoy your lovely gardens? He was rather fond of the gardens at de Vale, always running off to them when Mother took to scolding one of us.”

“Thank you, Sir Robert,” I say and clench my hands together. “Indeed he has had opportunity to enjoy it, and even to sketch some of it. We were married in the summer, you know.”

“Ah so he still insists on his scribbles.”

“They are much appreciated around here, and I would hardly call them scribbles,” I scold and Sir Robert cringes.

“Of course. I know he is quite talented. I was merely thinking of the many times he was taken to task for drawing instead of focusing on his Latin conjugations.” I’ve no answer and stand still as Sir Robert fidgets. “It is good to be out of the house for a time, after all the rain the past day. Would you care to join me in a stroll through your gardens?”

I do not want to spend any amount of time alone with this confusing, infuriating man. I’d rather stomp on his toes and spit in his tea. How uncharitable of me.

“Very well,” I say instead and begin walking. For Peeta’s sake, and perhaps even a little for Delly’s, I will be polite to this wretch.

“This statue is quite unique. It reminds me of one I saw in Northwest Panem.”

“That is where my mother is from,” I inform him. “She brought the statue with her when she married my father.”

“Such an expense, dragging a ponderous statue that distance,” Sir Robert grumbles and I laugh with no humor.

“My father loves her, always has. He would have dragged a dozen statues from Northwest Panem, if she wished it. Thankfully, this was the only one she desired.”

“Oh the things one will do for love,” Sir Robert scoffs. I ignore his complaint and continue, recalling a bit of something Delly said just yesterday at tea.

“When did you have occasion to be in Northwest Panem? Is that where you and Delly honeymooned?”

“Yes,” he answers, his smile strained now. “Although exiled might be a better term for it,” Sir Robert mutters then offers me his arm and motions towards a corner leading into the hedgerows. “Shall we?”

I leave his arm waiting and take the turn unassisted. My slippers crunch on the gravel walk. Sir Robert’s boots right behind. He takes longer strides than I and soon walks beside me, arms folded behind his back. I do not look at him as I continue to walk.

“In all the business of the festival, I’ve not had the chance to ask you… Where then has my brother run off to? You did not exile him, did you?”

“He has run nowhere, nor have I exiled him. He is greatly missed, but his leaving is understood. Peeta answered a plea for help. A friend from the infantry recently and most unexpectedly came into lands in need of some attention.”

Sir Robert makes a strange noise at this. “He runs off to help some grumpy soldier for two weeks when he could be here with you and the lovely Countess?” His comments annoy me, given the implication once again that there is something between Madge and my husband. I control the rage and answer with shocking calm.

“His willingness to help a friend is quite noble, and how would you know his friend’s disposition? I did not even tell you the name of the man.”

“Yes, well. I’ve met enough of them to know they are all grumpy and far too serious, including my brother at times. He was much more pleasant before his time away. Although, he always was insufferably noble, at least he used to be fun when pressed to be so,” Sir Robert says.

His words only stoke my rage. Used to be fun? How could he say such a thing? Has he any idea of what Peeta’s “time away” entailed? Such a spoiled attitude, acting as though Peeta went away on holiday instead of being banished by their father to the infantry for the temerity of existing. Such arrogance to think Peeta did not endure his service, sweating and bleeding and dying in many ways, so far away from any place he’d once called home. And despite the fact that I once called Peeta that exact same thing — insufferably noble — I halt and whirl to face Sir Robert.

“You make it sound like a flaw in his character. To be noble.”

“Not at all. What is, perhaps, the true flaw in his character is leaving such an exquisite bride behind so soon after the wedding and neglecting her in such a shocking manner. Were I your husband–”

“Were you my husband,” I say with an inordinate amount of rancor. His face pales and his eyes widen as he realizes what he has done.

“I misspeak.”

“Indeed you do,” I say, anger and some awful sadness mixing inside me as I stare at this man, his face identical to and yet so different from the one I most wish to see. “For you are not my husband.”

And I am, as I told Madge, exceptionally relieved by the fact.

“Come now, you were honest with me that day in the garden. You cannot pretend to a broken heart. You made it quite clear that love was never your quest.”

“Which garden do you speak of, sir?”

“Which garden…” His face shows confusion and he shakes his head, yet his teasing smile remains in place. “The one…at your Uncle’s townhome…when I proposed?”

It is awkward enough for him to be saying it outright, yet I remain silent, waiting for a realisation. A hint of something that never comes. His smile falters. His feet shift. A goose honks overhead. The earth moves forward a small degree.

“Have you already forgotten my proposing? If so, then I truly have reached a low, although it would not be surprising.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, removing his hat in the process, and the movement is another sharp pang to my heart. Peeta does the same thing when agitated.

One more day, I remind myself. It is only one more day. A trifle. Nothing. Peeta will be back in a blink and I will regret these maudlin thoughts. Especially once I tell him the secrets I carry now in my heart and in my womb, a secret promise for a happy future for us to share.

“I remember you proposing marriage, and I further remember the shame of it when I learned from your father and Peeta that you had eloped with someone else with no word to me at all.”

“I do apologize for that. Surely you must understand. I could not pause to post a letter. How should I explain that to my Delly? Sorry, darling! Just need to stop here to inform the woman I proposed marriage to this morning that the wedding is off! Such confusion.”

He attempts a smile. A joke then. I am a joke to him. I stare at him until he coughs, finally grows uncomfortable with his words and the implications. He purses his lips and glances at the ground. I use the silence to continue walking. The fresh air is welcome, invigorating even. I piece my resolve back together one step at a time. Sir Robert follows but we remain silent for a time.

“He speaks highly of you. In his letters.”

“He would not insult me, even were he miserable with me,” I say and Sir Robert sighs.

“Indeed that is my great fear. That he would be miserable and suffer in silence. It would not be the first time he did so. But at least admit that the outcome is better for most of us involved,” he says. There’s a thread of concern, almost desperation in his voice, as though he is not sure of it himself and needs me to do the reassuring for him. It makes me wonder if Sir Robert now regrets his actions, or merely the consequences of them. I stand still as stone until he shuffles his feet to a halt beside me. I cannot repair whatever damage he has done to his own and to Delly’s life, but I can take him to task for what he did to me.

“Yes, humiliation and forced betrothal are precisely the outcome I wished.”

“It could not have been so awful. You act as insufferably noble as he. Clearly you and he are well suited and you must forgive me.”

“Why must I?”

“Because despite what you may think of me, I do care a great deal for my brother’s happiness, and it is clear he has lucked into a comfortable and secure life here with you. And I cannot stand the thought of anyone thinking so ill of me.”

“I would not dare to think ill of you. Peeta loves you, and so as you imply, there must be something redeeming in your character.”

“There, see!” Robert says triumphantly.

“And yet you insist on implying that he is ignoble and would perhaps develop feelings for my dearest friend…perhaps even act on them?”

“Yes, about that. I did warn you my thoughts were a touch rude. Her behaviour and that of her daughter struck me as odd. It seemed a perfect situation for such a thing, perfectly reasonable given the lack of blood connection. Surely you–”

“I surely do not. Do you suggest family ties must be bound in blood to be real? If you believe that, then you surely know very little of your own beloved brother’s life before you entered it. I know Madge better than you could ever hope to, and I begin to believe that I know Peeta better than you could hope to. You claim to wish to protect him? Then cease suggesting he might betray his own character and break his promises to me, with my dearest friend nonetheless.”

Sir Robert stares at me as the fury flows out of me with the words, replaced with relief. Relief to be saying these things and in fact…believing them. I draw myself down to a less aggressive, more ladylike stance, once more folding my hands together and continuing to walk. Silence reigns for a time, a most welcome quiet, only the sounds of our footsteps.

“You are quite right, madame. I have…acted most abominably,” he finally admits.

“Indeed you have,” I agree and he sighs.

“Then we are in agreement of sorts? You will forgive me for my erroneous thoughts?”

“Why should I?” I should absolve him, for Peeta’s sake. Yet even as I think it, we pass a stone bench and my memory conjures the sweet scents of blossoms in the spring night. So many memories I have tucked away for fear of what they mean, now hazy and obscured by time. There is one more thing yet unresolved between us, though I fear the resolution of this mystery.

A scattered few drops of rain strike the ground. I hold up a hand to catch several as Sir Robert makes a noise of protest. He grasps my elbow and we hurry through the rest of the garden, seeking refuge from the rain beneath the roof of the verandah just as the sky opens, pouring its contents on the world.

“More rain will make the roads impassable,” I mutter.

“Indeed. Mrs. Mellark, I do apologise for my behaviour. It seems I am in need of another of my brother’s lectures. He was rather fond of preaching when we were younger. It’s a wonder he didn’t take the cloth as a profession. I will beg him to spare you at least. Such lovely ears should not be tortured so,” Sir Robert says with that smile that no doubt melts all the knees in Capitol, and yet I find it no longer affects me. How odd. It is then that I notice…his lips pull up evenly when he smiles. Not lopsided.

Another memory leaps into focus, unbidden and unwanted. A blonde head tilted towards me. Blue eyes bright with mirth. An asymmetrical mask covering…the left side of a face. Yes I am certain it was the left side. A peculiar design for a mask that I had thought was meant to match my dress at the time, but now I wonder if there was another reason and plumb my memories further…

A pair of red stained lips curling in a lopsided smile.

Peeta’s smile is lopsided… is it not? Have I imposed his now beloved smile upon the face of the man in the mask in a fit of wishful thinking? How sad that I cannot recall for certain in this moment. He’s been gone far too long for my liking. I cannot seem to distinguish memory from fantasy and push them both aside rather than sort them. Instead I shall deal with what is in front of me.

I shrug to show my indifference to Sir Robert’s charms. In truth, his flattery does warm the heart, but it is fleeting and meaningless without the constancy of devotion behind it. The steadiness that Peeta brings to everything in many ways is what lends credence to all of his flowery praise of me.

“Why have you come here, Sir Robert? To Everdeen?”

“I wished to visit my brother. I’ve not seen him in months. Have I any other need?”

“As long as that is your sole reason,” I say as we continue to stand, observing the rain rather than retreating once more to the confines of the house.

I watch the gardner hurry up the path, a basket overflowing with blooms, covered with a cloth on her arm. She curtsies and hurries inside, the scent of the flowers trailing on the air behind her and an image, vivid and sweet returns to me.

The cloak of night and soft lips on my scars. Merciful heaven. Guilt such as I have never known surges up inside me, hand in hand with latent desires. It should not matter. Peeta and I… we are happy, I believe, or at least on the path to happiness. We have begun to build something together, grown together in a way I had scarcely dared hope for when I set out to secure a marriage. I do not wish to jeopardize it and yet I feel an unquenchable need to know for certain.

The man in the mask…such a plague to me all those months ago. I have rarely thought of him lately. In my mind I had divided them into three men to better deal with the confusion and heartache. There is Peeta, now my husband and my love, a man I trust and rely upon, the father to my unborn child. There is Sir Robert…a man to whom I was briefly engaged, although I knew so little of him, and now realise ‘twould have been disastrous for me to wed.

And third there is the man in the mask, someone I felt enamored with for a night or perhaps longer, who I think represented to me the hope that I might not have to endure a marriage without affection, without trust, without…love, though I only sought one of those at the time. The man in the mask represented perhaps some sort of fantasy, an illusion that I might still have all three. And I have achieved that dream against such terrible odds. I should let him go, as I long ago let Sir Robert go, and yet…I cannot.

The problem lies in the fact that these three men do not exist well in my mind at the same time, although I know that two of them must be one and the same. If it was Sir Robert in the mask, he romanced me most shamefully for a man on the cusp of an elopement with another. Used me most shamefully, but ‘twould make it easier to let the man in the mask go. All of it would then have been a lie, an act, and none of it real.

And if it was Peeta? I do not know. I admit that while it would be easier to relinquish the man in the mask were it Robert instead, I nearly hope it was Peeta, because I cannot bear the thought that he may have lied to me about it after we were engaged, because those feelings that sprung to life inside of me that night with the man in the mask… I feel so many of them now with Peeta.

It feels almost a betrayal of him to have felt so for another man, and yet…at the time I believed it to be Robert and would that not be a betrayal of Peeta as well? How could I betray him when there was nothing between Peeta and I at the time of the masquerade, nothing at all save a pair of boots, a questionable rescue or two, and some peppered tea. And what of the betrayal of my heart that occurred that night?

For there to be betrayal, there would need be trust first.

It is such a muddled puzzle in my head, and I begin to feel a headache forming. This is why my brain conjured the three man solution. Think of them separately and I need not consider the implications of that night. For even if my hopes are realised and it turns out that it was Peeta in the mask… why then would he have kissed me, and with such intimacy and passion? Surely he could have shared a glass of wine with me, chatted about the portraits, and then been on his way. That would have been distraction enough from Sir Robert’s absence, and I would have remained unaware of the elopement, unable to raise a cry of suspicion until the following morn or perhaps even later. Why take the added step of kissing me?

Delly’s words rise up as an explanation and yet my mind is as hazy as the rain soaked world before me right now. I cannot see to the end of the garden and I do not know. I do not know and I hate that this now arises to make me doubt my feelings for my husband when I have only so recently dealt with a different source of doubt.

“Mrs. Mellark,” Sir Robert intrudes upon my reverie. “Tell me what I can do to earn your forgiveness. Peeta would not wish any sort of conflict between us as we are both important to him.”

“You wish forgiveness?”

“Of course. My brother is…well he is the perfect brother to me. Perhaps you do not understand. As an eldest sibling, you would be the example for your sister. I, as the youngest, inevitably have the successes of the older shoved in my face. With Peeta, however, there was always… Well it was different with him. Father would never have used him as an example for me to follow, even though he is older. The expectations placed on me, on all of us save for Peeta, could often feel suffocating. And our older brothers, Ethan and Henry they expected as much out of me as Father did. But Peeta, he was not just my brother, he was… he is my friend. One of the few I can truly trust and be myself around without fearing recrimination, save for the occasional insufferably noble reminder that I know is right, even if it annoys me to hear it. I tease him for his righteous attitude, but he still cares for me and attempts to protect me, even from myself, no matter how many times I disappoint him.”

I can only stand in silence for a time.

“Do you understand what I mean?” he prompts.

“I do.” And I believe that I do understand. Such a sad life they must have led surrounded by all the comforts and education that money could buy and none of the affections of a real family until they found one another. How sad that it was only with great loss for Peeta that were able to do so. And now Sir Robert seeks absolution from me before his brother returns and finds himself once more disappointed.

“A relief,” Sir Robert says with a smile.

As I gaze up at him, I cannot help but catalogue the differences not just in their characters, but in their features. Beside the most noticeable – Peeta’s scars – I am certain Sir Robert’s jaw line is rounder, softer. His eyes, while usually full of mirth, carry little depth and no capacity for intensity. His hair borders on foppish. Peeta’s nose is dusted with freckles that speak of his time out of doors while Robert’s remains clear of markings. Peeta’s hands are calloused and scarred from labour and a rougher life while Robert’s remain apparently smooth and pampered.

Perhaps I imagine it yet I am almost certain Peeta’s shoulders carry more breadth and strength in them, and while my observations might be superficial, they only add to my growing belief that while the outcome was initially messy and uncomfortable for all involved, Sir Robert has done me a great favor in eloping with Delly. I cannot, however, bring myself to sever the bonds between brothers, nor even cause deliberate tension, not when I know how important they are to one another, despite the wrongs Sir Robert may have visited upon me.

“I wish my brother happy in life, and you as well. So please, I beseech you. What need I do to earn your forgiveness for my callous behavior in abandoning you so that another more worthy might wed you instead?”

I scowl at the man. Even though his words are accurate in a way, as well as a backwards sort of compliment, I would not recommend his behaviour, nor praise it. But as he gives me an earnest, pleading look to rival Maysilee’s, an idea comes to me.

“You will take better care of your wife. I rather like her.”

“Indeed. I should do that anyways.”

“And…tell me what is your favourite colour.”

“My favourite–” he chuckles and his smile extends to his eyes now. “What a Peeta sort of question to ask, but if you must know, it is red. My favourite colour in all the world is red. Do I earn your forgiveness now?”

“I will consider it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I awaken to thunder. A great crack of it causing my pulse to leap and my body to do the same. I sit up, momentarily stunned as I stare out my window. Buckets upon buckets of rain pour from a churning autumnal sky. It lashes the upper panes on my windows and invades the room through the open lower half. The wind howls, twisting the wet drapes in a frightening dance. Lightning rends the sky in brilliant scars of light that turn the night into day, the sky to a voft violet for a second right before another great crack of thunder hurls me from the bed and into action.

I slam the window shut and cry in distress as my skin responds to the frigid rain on the floor beneath my feet. My feet slide over floorboards and I frantically move to stand on the rug, teeth chattering at the cold, rain soaked fabric of my shift now clinging to my calves. The chill permeates my body. I shiver, hugging myself and then resting my head on the sash.

Another bolt of lighting illuminates the gardens below, the river of water rushing along the paths. The accompanying crack of thunder shakes the house.

Travel home today will be difficult. Unsafe. Perhaps even impossible. Peeta may not be able to keep his promise to me.

With a sigh, I move to the fireplace and add a log, stoking the blaze in the grate back to something that might warm my now cold frame and dry my shift. I curl up on the sofa and listen to the rain. I do not bother mopping up the mess. It is my own fault, my fanciful whims getting the better of me. Peeta prefers to sleep with the window open, and so I have chosen to continue to do so in his absence.

The storm rages outside as I stare into the fire and my eyes droop. I am so very tired.

When I wake, it is with a start and confusion. A warm blanket covers me and fresh kindling is piled beside the grate. A tea service sits on a nearby table, a curl of steam drifting up into the air from the spout. The sky outside has lightened considerably, indicating that it is morning. I struggle to stand and throw the window open, gasping at the cold bite of air that sweeps in and embraces me. The honking of geese overhead reaches me as I squint into the bright sunlight, my eyes relaxing as great, puffy white clouds race across the azure sky, momentarily blocking out the light and what little heat the sun provides. Rainwater drips from the eaves of the house and puddles in the garden below. If I hold my breath, I can hear the faint rushing of the stream in the neighboring woods.

Peeta is meant to be home today.

My heart skips at the thought. I linger over the tea. I dress and then change my mind, discarding one gown for another with an urgency that disturbs me. When I finally leave my chambers, it is well past the hour of breakfast. Everyone else in the house seems to have eaten and moved on to whatever amusements they might find in the now pleasant weather. I eat then wrap myself in a warm coat and sit on the verandah, attempt to read and fail.

Finally, I wander into the study, ringing for tea and warming my hands by the fire as I wait. I mull over everything said to me the past few days and despite the mounting evidence, I still doubt. Doubt and doubt and doubt until the tea is brought and Mary retreats and the fire pops loudly.

A memory sparks to life in the blaze. A letter. One I never read and thought to burn.

I scramble to the desk and search the drawers, casting aside bits of wax and broken quills, scraps of paper until I find it, all the way in the back of the drawer, forgotten for months. The letter Peeta gave to me the day after we were betrothed. I sink into the chair with it shaking in my hands, the weight of it pushing me deep into the cushions. It is thick, several sheets at least. I breathe heavily and rip open the seal. The top sheet slides askew as I unfold the thing and I catch sight of the corner of a drawing.

For one moment, I am immobilised. Frozen in my seat and then I separate the top sheet with Peeta’s writing on it and set it aside to stare at the drawing. Only it is not one drawing, but rather several crammed onto the sheet. Three pages of them. A mad, disorganised ejection of images from his mind, as though he feared that if he did not commit them to charcoal and paper as soon as possible, he might forget them. I know it is his work, as I would recognise his touch anywhere. And they are almost entirely of me, wearing a mask and a gown with one bare shoulder. Gazing at portraits, laughing, staring up at the artist with a teasing gleam in my eyes, weilding a fan, comforting the girl with red hair and red lips.

He has drawn the entire evening I spent with the man in the mask in exquisite detail. It is difficult to ignore this last piece of proof. A lightness burgeons upwards in my chest, threatening to choke me with something like tears and hope.

The mask, I realise. The truth is in the mask. I grab the first sheet as well and race upstairs, leaving my tea on the desk to cool as I search my room until I pull the mask I wore that fateful night free of its confines and set it on the table, next to the drawings.

“Oh!” I gasp and sink into the sofa.

Perfect.

He has rendered the mask in perfect detail, the intricate designs painted on the plaster, the whorls of color, the shading about the eyes, the curvature over my forehead, the fall of the feathers and the cowl over my shoulder. The minute details are too faithful, too accurate, to have been relayed by word of mouth. Whoever drew this… he saw me wearing this very mask. He saw me wearing it, and I have only ever worn it the one night before hiding it away and leaving it locked out of sight.

That is when I am finally able to accept it, to know without a doubt in my heart, my soul, and my mind… Peeta is my man in the mask.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued…. Chapter 22 will be posted to @everlarkficexchange

Your clue for chapter 21: Remember that it is a word you seek, a single word. The others might only lead you away from the answer. What was Peeta meant to provide the night of the masquerade?

#Springtime Edition 2019 #prompt 88 #M #late submission #submission

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