on a possible return to games soon

[resolve]

[She'd known this was coming. How could it not? Temporary reprieves are a trap, only meant to invoke a false sense of security; her enemy, this enemy she can't see and can't truly know, is persistent. The Games never end.

Words are wasted on these people. Would still be even if she were good with them. If there's any constant to be counted on, it's that. Maybe the anger's wasted, too, but anger is hardly cognizant of waste. Anger only burns through her, and destroys everything in its path.

Anger is her strongest driving force.]

I won't go. You can't make me go. [Her face hardens.] I'm done being a piece.

Comments

[orator]

We keep not getting much of a choice, don't we?

[resolve]

[She sees it over and over again in her mind, even now. Relives it constantly, both in her waking hours and in her nightmares. The moment she allowed Peeta to leave her sight. The moment she made the critical mistake.

This, now, is only a slap in the face. He should've been the one to leave the Quell alive and unharmed; that'd been the mantra of a dying mission. She'd failed. She'd failed, and now he's here.

She can't let this happen. Suddenly, tracks have changed, and this is now the driving thought. There's a long moment before she speaks, and when she does, she's lost some of the hostility she had before, but retains a certain forcefulness.]

Convince them to send you back. [And another beat] You can. [You have to.

Maybe words aren't wasted when they're coming from someone like him, someone who can play a crowd and move an entire country with nothing but his wits. It's the possibility she has to bank on, even if the odds have never exactly been in her favor.]

[orator]

Katniss... [His mouth closes, his expression turning grave. He can't finish his thought, which is that it's not him they want, it's her. For months he'd pushed it to the back of his mind, or he'd pretended otherwise, not allowing himself to linger on anything which deterred him from his goal. Her, at home, safe to love, to be happy, to grow old.

It's not as though he didn't consider alternatives — Gamemakers with orders from above, both of them dying in an arranged accident — but he'd let himself get blinded anyway. Maybe, if he hadn't been so single-minded, so naive in thinking they could go along with things just a little longer, he would've seen what the others were planning.

He shouldn't have let her go.

Peeta exhales.] Not without you. [He holds up a hand, knowing she'll argue, but what is he supposed to do? Any plan he can think of to free himself would have to involve giving her up, and he'd choose death first.] It's not too late to convince them they're wrong. You're not... whatever they think you are, anyone can see that!

laaaate but i can't resist a katniss???

[andproper]

Katniss?

Are you okay?