The Huntress and the Beast by thesweetnessofspring

Rated M for sexual content, depiction of suicidal ideation/planning, and references to past canon-typical violence and sex trafficking.

Description: Prim was never reaped and Peeta became the sole victor of the 74th Games, earning the nickname "the Beast." Ostracized by society after a horrifying incident at the end of the war solidified his nickname, Peeta retreats to live on the mountainside alone. Years later, Katniss takes a position to live with Peeta and eat dinner with him each night for one year, partly to make up for the bread that saved her family and partly to escape Gale's marriage proposal. Each chapter is one month of this year, as Everlark grow together and build a home.

Chapter Four: April

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Rain greets us in April and delays our trip back to town until it's safer to travel.

Fresh green leaves in the garden reach out of the ground from the water puddling around their base while the trellises and the fruit trees have blossomed into pink and white constellations dripping from the rain.

We stay inside except to see to the animals. Peeta takes the task of checking the chickens and gets pelted with the rain while I feed the animals taking shelter in the barn.

After we remove our muddy boots at the door, we go into Peeta's art studio to begin work on the plant book. He tests the colors on a sample page until I'm satisfied that it looks as they are in the woods. With my approval, he then works at applying the color and shading it just right.

Water droplets freckle the wide window pane and punch down on the leaves and pine needles outside while low clouds haze over the district. I wrap myself in a quilt and watch Peeta work. He has an intensity to him while finding just the right shade, a fierce determination I hadn't seen in person before.

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***gif credit of fivel stewart to @trashxrps. the glitch comes from downloading the banner from canva and not the source. source here. rain gif is from canva.

big day for annoying people (me)

katniss will say she finds younger haymitch attractive before she says she'll find gale attractive

I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. “No, don’t let go of me,” he says. The firelight flickers off his blue eyes.

God, please take all of the hate that Rachel Zegler is getting, double it up, and give it to G*l G*dot

all the fear and the fire of the end of the world

happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl

Maysilee asking for utensils to maintain a semblance of dignity and not allowing the capitol to view her as an animal. Katniss purposefully dropping her utensils and using her hands to eat when Effie refers to the starving tributes from the year prior as savages for doing so.

katniss: “so what’s your favorite memory of my da-“

haymitch: “skinny dipping.”

katniss: “…im sorry, what did you sa-“

haymitch: “skinny. dipping. go ahead & write that in your little book while you’re at it.”

I can't ever not be angry about how they were too cowardly to make Katniss as vulnerable as she is in the books in the films.

I think it really spearheaded a media movement that could only talk and show "strong" female characters if they were rejecting any of the softer sides of themselves. Where strong just meant more typically "masculine" and I think for a good few years as a teenager, it really did a number on me and I held on to a lot of internalised misogyny as a result.

It's Katniss' moments of weakness and vulnerability that make her such a realistic and human character and it's one of the reasons that makes her stand out against the other imitations of her kind at the time.

The moments where she shows vulnerability are also the moments that are so key to the book. It's what they discuss in 13 that she's better when she's on the spot and improvising- eg. when she volunteered, put the flowers around rue, called out for Peeta in the arena after the rule change. These are all the moments when she has real powerful impact and effect on people and it's because they're moments where she has let her guard down and shown a vulnerability.

Yeah, she can do all her cool badass stuff too and shoot her bow and arrow, it's cool. And I like that her and Peeta subvert the traditional stereotype of gender roles in their relationship. But she has SO much power in her ability to be compassionate and the moments where she is sensitive.

Also, I just have to add that she has rejected a lot of feminine things in reaction to her need for survival and essentially becoming the man of the house after her father dies. THG is about a 16 year old and despite all the chaos is still a coming of age story amongst other things. A big part of her narrative arc is letting herself be emotional and vulnerable and allowing herself to enjoy beautiful things again. On the topic of romance, she has been so independent and has been leading her family for so long that another part of her arc is about letting people in and care for her sometimes, so let her have her boy with the bread, alright?

ALSO she never thinks she's better than anyone else for not being interested in things like fashion, she just simply acknowledges that she has little interest in it, whilst still being appreciative of the work Cinna does.

i wonder if haymitch was laughing his ass off in catching fire when katniss was WHOLLY disinterested in plutarch. do you think they had a conversation that was just haymitch going "dude you're fucking weird and off-putting no wonder she wants nothing to do with you. your method has not gotten better in 25 years"

"What did you say to the girl?" I say through gritted teeth. Plutarch is gnawing on another turkey leg. His third of the night.

"I asked her for a dance." Plutarch smiles, and I can see a bit of gristle lodged between his front teeth. "I was a gentleman."

I snort. "Ah. Ok, the maggots metaphor is making sense."

"Maggots?!"

"Yeah. The ranking of things she'd like to have come in contact with her skin. Gamemakers. Coachroaches. Maggots." I seize the drumstick from his greasy fingers and drop it into the closest bin. "The Boy's name is at the top of the list. I think you can guess where yours is."

Plutarch harrumphs. "I showed her my watch."

"She thinks you like fad jewelry trends," I scoff. "Look, you gotta get it together. You're creeping her out."

“the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love.”

❗️❗️SUNRISE ON THE REAPING SPOILERS❗️❗️

‘I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway…”.

Katniss who stopped singing after her father’s death and now finds music useless, lumping it with rainbows and ribbons…

vs

Lenore Dove who eats rainbow gumdrops, wears raspberry ribbons and sings (but not in public.)

vs

Lucy Gray singing in her rainbow ruffles with her beribboned donation basket

vs katniss who starts singing again during her trial at the end of the war, who listens to peeta describe painting a rainbow to a dying woman, who doesn’t quite understand the significance of the ribbon she bought for her sister’s goat until peeta makes her think twice about it

katniss who had to let go of all “frivolity” in exchange for being the “man of the house”, who had to grow up before she outgrew her girlhood

SUNRISE ON THE REAPING SPOILERS

“I had a best friend once”.

´LENORE DOVE AND HAYMITCH'

This is biblically accurate btw Suzanne Collins told me herself (no spoilers)

so you’re telling me that after what happened to louella/lou lou haymitch had to watch peeta come back from the capitol as a “mutt version of himself” and question whether the shell of a human with peeta’s face was even peeta at all

and he had to do all that SOBER???

He would never say it to Katniss. He couldn't. And even when he finally gets his voice to work he whispers like speaking it will bring it to pass.

"Are we positive this is Peeta?"

Coin turns to look at him, eyes unamaused.

Beetee frowns, "It's clear that there is some psychological damage but-"

"No, no I mean-" he wishes more than anything to down a full bottle of whiskey. Twin braids flash before his eyes but with a body too small and frail for his first sweetheart. "Are we sure he's not a mutt. An actual one. Peeta's face stretched over a random body."

He doesn't talk about his own game. He never talks about it. He tries not to even think about it but this... This is all too familiar.

Coin's words are clipped. Disapproving. "The Capitol is barbaric, but even they can't -"

"No," Beetee interjects. "No I remember. The second Quarter Quell they had us-" An anguish look crosses his face before he shakes it away, glancing at Haymitch. "It's possible. They've done it before."

And with twenty-five years to perfect their technique who's to say how convincing they may be.

Maybe their Peeta is still in the Captiol. Maybe their Peeta is dead already.

"Very well." Coin's voice drips with distaste. This is something she clearly doesn't feel she has time for. "Test Peeta's blood. Make sure it's him."

"And if it's not?" Haymitch makes direct eye contact, something Coin doesn't shy away from.

"Then we'll dispose of him like all of the other Capitol Mutts."

Haymitch leaves the meaning up to interpretation when he says only. "Murderers."

That night without the aid of his sweet nepenthe he dreams of a little girl who cried when given bread, of sweet bee balm and deadly pollen, of a too small body cradled in his arms.

And like he does most every night now, he dreams of the murderers.