#catherinecrow

1. Are you reading any books at the moment? What are they?  I am currently reading, albeit slowly, A Dance With Dragons, whiskeysnarker's Hope In the Darkness, and trovia's Spin Control.

2. Name three things you really like about yourself.  My hair (when it behaves), my singing voice, and my eyes.

3. Vampires or werewolves?  Oh, gosh.  They both have good points.  Probably werewolves, 'cause they're furry and warm?

4. What was the first piece fanfiction you ever read?  A Farscape fic by KodiakkeMax called In the Company of Ghosts.  It was incredible and I knew I was doomed.

5. Top 5 places you want to visit.  Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Hawaii

6. How much do you love Katniss Everdeen?  Kind of a lot. 

7. What’s your favorite poem? (If you read poetry of course)  I don't read a lot of poetry, but I did base a fic off of one that I liked. It was a prompt in the Girl on Fire ficathon a couple of years ago: The Dark, Blue Sea by Byron

8. How much sleep do you like to get?  Like to get?  8 to 10 hours.  :P  Actually get is more like 5 hours.

9. What is the best class you’ve ever taken?  A creative writing class in college.  It was just the one, but I really enjoyed it.

Tag 10 friends, including me, so I’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them!

Tag 10 friends, including me, so I’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them!

(I'm counting series as one. That's allowed, right?)

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Giver

The Hunger Games

The Screwtape Letters

The Road

Animorphs

Harry Potter

Stargirl

The Three Musketeers

Yay!  She likes it!  :D 

Happy birthday, catherinecrow!  It kind of peters out at the end, but I hope you like it anyway.  It’s turned out to be long enough I’ll have to figure out a name for it.  ;)

================

He’s up to his elbows in bread dough, punching it down, rolling it, kneading it, over and over again – mindless work, it helps him to center himself – when he feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise up.  A shiver runs down his spine as all his muscles lock.  He’s supposed to be safe here.  No one else can be here during his assigned work time, the wee hours of the morning, when most of the others in District 13 are safely asleep.

Peeta straightens, hands clenched into floury fists; he forces his muscles to relax, but in his head, he is screaming, torn between fight and flight.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”  He doesn’t bother turning to face the man standing in the doorway.  “I don’t want you here.”  His hands are fists again, and this time he can’t make his fingers uncurl.

“I don’t have to report for training until six.”  Boot steps echo in Peeta’s head.  One step.  Two.  Three.  The voice is closer, silky smooth and shot through with red and gold, a stinging edge.  “I just wanted to thank you for the cake.  It was beautiful.”

A shudder runs through his body, or would, if he weren’t holding himself so rigidly.  “I didn’t do it for you.”  Finnick Odair.  One of her creatures.  “I did it for Annie.”  A breath of sound rolls through his head, soft, soothing.  “She used to sing to herself in her cage.  Like a bird.”  The more they hurt her, the more she sang.  She used to sing to him, too, trying to help him hold the pieces of himself together when they did their best to tear him apart.

“I wanted to thank you for that, too, Peeta.  Annie told me how you helped her through…”  He stops talking and Peeta wonders what lies he’s trying to think up.  He is her ally, her partner.  But Annie loves him, a small voice whispers inside his head.  Annie couldn’t love him if he were a lying mutt like her.

Shaking his head to dislodge that treacherous voice, Peeta turns to face Annie’s husband.  Wearing a gray uniform with “Odair” above the left breast pocket and black combat boots, his bronze hair and green eyes are the only splashes of color in the white and gray and stainless steel kitchens of District 13.

green eyes boring into him as strong hands squeeze his throat tighter and tighter choking him holding him down can’t breathe can’t breathe

Peeta stumbles back from Finnick and from the shimmering memory of the arena, bright edged with colors not seen in nature.  He blinks, raises his flour-covered hands to his head in a vain attempt to hold back the pain.

“Annie does that sometimes,” Finnick says and Peeta can’t remember how he got so close.  “She says it helps her to hold the memories and the fear at bay.”  Peeta looks sidewise at him.

“You tried to kill me in the arena,” he accuses.  “You pinned me to the ground and tried to choke me.”  But even as he says it, it sounds wrong.  The colors were wrong, shiny.

“No, Peeta.  I’m your friend.  I saved your life.  I never tried to take it.”

Lowering his hands, Peeta searches Finnick’s face.

A hard shove sent him flying and as he looked back, he saw Enobaria’s knife stick in Finnick’s thigh, right where Peeta had stood mere seconds before.  And then the world was spinning and he was clinging to the rock, trying to keep from flying out into the water.

Squeezing harder at the sides of his head, Peeta closes his eyes, trying to hold onto this memory.  It’s gritty and raw, greenish and grayish and salty, soaking him to the skin.  But not shiny.  Nothing about it is unnatural.