#hello firned

He'd spent five years in the mines, he'd grown complacent but not content, doing whatever he could to make sure his family would survive. When he was younger, he hoped for an  uprising that would set the Capitol alight, but that hadn't  happened, and every year he grew more weary as he watched another child, another sibling to a friend go into the arena and die. District 12 hasn't had a victor since Haymitch over thirty years ago. The quarter quell had been just as gruesome as the previous two, in this, as a reminder that 'even those who believe that they are out of the grasps of the capitol are still subject to the same laws', the tributes were reaped from those who were older than eighteen, and he found himself worrying about himself for the first time since the 74th hunger games. For the whole time between the reaping then and the announcement of the quarter quell, he'd been focused on his family.  The odds must have been in his favor, because he was still among his siblings rather than among the fallen. The male tribute from 12 was a volunteer for the first time, an elderly man who volunteered in place of an eighteen-year-old boy,  who knew that he didn't have much time left, and chose to allow the boy to live a longer life, if he were lucky.  Katniss had been spending most of the day in the woods  for the past three years, as soon as she was free of school she ventured into the greenery and spent less time within the fence than without it. He didn't blame her, he'd escape  if he could, but rather he spent his time underground under the pretense of feeding his family, while she actually brought home food for their hungry throats. It may be a stab to his pride, but he loved her more for it. She made more money than he did, turning her poaching into as much as career as something so illegal can be. They'd grown into a system,  living each day in routine and repetition to the degree that it was almost easy to forget all that was wrong with the world.         ( But that was never possible, not really. Not with        Prim in the reapings, or Rory, Vick, eventually        Posy. While they were safe they still lived each        day with held breaths, released only as names        were called out and unfamiliar, then taken in as        they watched the games, thinking of their little        ones as tributes. ) He was 26 when the trucks brought in a sea of white peace- keepers, and the old system was abandoned for the rigidity that was already likely imposed on the rest of the districts.  He immediately met grey eyes with Katniss, now 24 and more beautiful than she ever was before. There was a growing  tension between them, as they got older and more restless with being alone in their beds at night. Maybe the day would come during this hellfire war that the world was on the brink of that he'd admit to her what he's felt for years. He knew that's what it was, after all, there's been uprisings in the districts, there had to be.  For the first time in years, he allowed himself to hope for a rebellion, to believe that the people of Panem might take action rather than stand idly by. The problem before with action was that, against the capitol, one man or even the majority fighting would still be impotent, it was nearly an all-or-nothing situation in which they all fought, or all those who fought died.  Either way, he'd be on the side that fought. He'd seen too many children die, felt the ache of hunger far too acutely and often not to. He'd rather die in action than remain here,  trapped in this complacency with the knowledge that he could have done something and didn't. He introduced the idea to Katniss late one night, as the fire was dying out and they still remained in its limited warmth.  He told her that he planned to fight, that it was the best  thing he could do. It reminded him of their friendship all the years ago, when they'd meet at the usual spot and he'd talk for hours about rebellion and uprising. But he was just a boy then, playing at war games. They'd outgrown their toy soldiers, this was a real war, and they were the pawns.         " I can't sit by and let other people fight for me.        I've talked too much about rebellion to back out now.        I care too much to leave it in the hands of others. " He felt seventeen again, throwing berries up in the air as Katniss caught them tactfully in her mouth. But this wasn't the idle chatter of child revolutionaries who thought the  world might change, this was something far more grim.  He couldn't ask her to go with him, to leave Prim behind  and go fight in a war, he wasn't selfish enough to ask,  but not selfless enough to want her to stay. He needed her to understand that this would be the best way to ensure Prim's safety, to make sure that she lives in a  better world. He hoped that he didn't have to, that she knew already.    " I can't let people die for me. There's too much death    already. I have to make sure that Rory, Vick, and Posy    don't have to see that much death. " He couldn't help but consider that war must be worse than the arena. The same stench of rotting corpse, but mingled with the potency of hundreds of bodies, the rotten sting of burning gunpowder, the sounds of bombs,  screams, bullets. He was ready to face them, he had to. There is no choice for him, he was a rebel to his core he quickly discovered, their very living was evidence to that, as they were both only alive because they hunted in the woods outside 12 illegally. This was the life he'd lived, and it was time to build a better one for his loved ones.             " We have to fight.              (Just like we always talked about.) "