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[and_survive]

She'd been tracking the deer for an hour, and she didn't know why, exactly.

She must have had some idea this is what she meant to do when she found herself leaving the city that morning, because she'd stopped at her storage unit and collected her weapons, loading the backpack that now usually held school books with the tools of survival that had always sat beside her comics and her joke books.

Somehow, it sat better on her back like that. That was probably messed up.

But then, so was everything in this place. Messed up in how it was unmessed up, like someone had rolled back the clock on disaster. Made civilization come back. And Riley. Riley was back now, too, and Ellie... it wasn't accurate to say she didn't know how she felt. She felt everything, all at once, and that was the problem. She wanted to do nothing but be with Riley; she couldn't bear to be around Riley. She wanted nothing more than to talk endlessly with her, do everything in the city with her; she couldn't look at Riley without seeing everything that had happened, everything that Riley didn't know about.

It got so the noise in her head was as loud as the city and suddenly the city was driving her out of her mind, like the two noises were combining, and so she'd skipped school and came out... here. The countryside.

And it was better. It was quiet. It didn't seem to expect anything from her except that she be in it. She'd shot a rabbit, and tied it to her bag for lunch.

And then she'd found the deer tracks, and even though she didn't need the food, had no way of getting it back or doing anything with it if she brought it down, she'd stalked it through the forest, slowly and persistently following it. A glimpse here, a cautious step, a startle, another pursuit, until she had it fully in her sights, bow drawn taut.

She didn't fire. She stared at the deer until her arm ached with the strain of holding the bow at full draw, until there was no way she'd hit it anyway, she was shaking and wavering so. Hunting the deer had calmed her, but what would killing her do? Was this her now, killing when no killing needed to be done?

She relaxed the string without firing, and stood deliberately on a twig. "See you later, girl," she said, watching the deer startle and run and jump. Scared, but graceful, like being scared was the most natural thing in the world.

Probably it was.

She walked to a log by the stream the deer had been drinking from and sat down, bow across her knees, and watched the water go past.

Comments

[vocalfuel]

I still spend most of my time out here. If anyone were to ask me why, I'm not even sure I'd be able to tell them. The animals I kill, they're what we live on, but they wouldn't have to be if I didn't choose to hunt. It's not a necessity, not like it was in District 12. But then, it wasn't something I needed to do in Thirteen, either, and I still made sure they gave me time to go out. Maybe it's just that old habits die hard. I think better out here, anyway, where it's still and quiet and I'm finally in my element. These days, there's a lot of thinking I need to do. I'm more on edge than ever, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. So far, it hasn't yet, but I want to be ready when it does. That's one more reason to hunt, too. I need to keep those skills sharp.

Those skills are what have me alerted to the presence of someone else in the forest even before I see another person. Doing anything other than following, then, is out of the question. I don't want to shoot without knowing who it might be and what they're doing, but I don't want to just ignore them, either. I can't let my guard down that much.

When I spot Ellie, she's got an arrow aimed at a deer. I hold my breath as I watch her, expecting her to shoot, instinctively disappointed when she instead lets it go. Back home, that would have been out of the question. I guess I've never quite been able to stop thinking like that.

I wait until she's taken a seat, though, before I walk up to her, careful to make my presence known for once, twigs snapping beneath my boots. Reaching her side, I don't take a seat yet. I haven't ruled it out, though. There's something about her that I like, something she understands that most people here can't. "You had a clear shot," I say. "But you didn't take it."

[and_survive]

She'd twisted at the first snap of the twig, hand leaving the knife in her pocket when she realized it was Katniss. Who she was pretty sure had let her hear her coming, especially if she'd seen all of that.

She had to work on listening to things the way Joel had taught her. Or maybe the fact that it was so hard to do, back in the City, with all the other noise drowning out the things she needed to hear, she was getting sloppy.

...actually, no, she thought it was just that Katniss was pretty fucking good, come to think.

"I don't need the meat," she said, looking down. "Wouldn't have any way to get it back, anyway. I'd have just been shooting her for the sake of shooting her, and it didn't seem... I don't know."

[vocalfuel]

It would have been death for death's sake. Difficult as it is to think about letting a potential food source get away, I can understand that. I've killed enough people and animals both to have problems with doing so senselessly too. If I weren't using what I've hunted for food, I don't think I'd go through with shooting anything. There'd be no point.

From the sound of it, she's had to hunt to survive before. I can't really say I'm surprised. It would explain a lot — the fact that I've seen her now with both a gun and a bow, how surprised she was by the state of the city the first time our paths crossed. I'm not really one to bond over similarities, but it's an interesting thing to keep in mind.

"Yeah," I say, and then I do sit down, like that's more of an agreement than I could give her verbally. "I haven't seen you out here before."

[and_survive]

"Haven't been," she said. "I didn't even realize it was like this, out here. Way the kids at school talk, the city's all there is. Or all they care about. If I'd known there was some proper quiet..."

She didn't know that she'd come all the time. For all its unnerving loudness, the sheer fury of life passing by, Darrow was fascinating. The world as it was before was fascinating.

But with Riley serving as tangible reminder of how everything could come crashing down, how nothing was safe and how maybe she didn't deserve to be safe, she'd had to get out, if only for a while.

[vocalfuel]

I can't say I'm not glad that's the case. Someone like Ellie being out here, I don't mind, but it's better if most people don't know or at least care about the quiet out in these woods. If they did, it probably wouldn't stay quiet for very long. People would scare off all the animals, and take away the one place here I can find any peace of mind.

But Ellie tracked that deer, and she came out here for quiet, and anyway, it's not like I own the woods. I don't mind someone else putting them to use.

"I think I would have gone crazy otherwise," I admit. "I'm out here most days. Old habits die hard, I guess."

[and_survive]

"Do you live out here? Shit, I didn't spook a deer you spent all day following, did I?" she said.

She didn't know if she would live out here, even if she had a way of making it happen. On the one hand, there was the quiet. On the other was the not knowing. She didn't want to be stuck in the crush of people if everything went to shit, but she didn't want to not know it'd happened, either.

And Riley was there. Even if she didn't know what the hell she felt about that, there was no way she wasn't staying in the same neighbourhood.

[vocalfuel]

"No, I wasn't following it," I assure her with an easy shake of my head. I wouldn't have minded catching a deer like that, sure, but it isn't as if she got in my way. There's still plenty of daylight left, and my survival doesn't hinge so fully on whatever animals I manage to kill now, anyway. We'd be fine for a night if I had an unsuccessful day out here. "I live just past the woods. There's a little farm."

[and_survive]

"Do you have any horses?" Ellie said, reflexively, although probably if they did asking to ride them would be a little weird. She didn't know if she would, either. It'd just remind her of how she'd gotten poor Callus killed. She'd loved that horse.

"We had a horse for a while, is all. Back... you know."

[vocalfuel]

"Before?" I ask, though it's not a question that really needs to be spoken. I know what she means. It would be hard not to, for anyone, I think, who showed up from somewhere else like we did. I don't wait for a response before nodding in confirmation. "There are a couple horses, yeah. My sister mostly takes care of the animals."

[and_survive]

"Do you have a whole farm thing going? Are there farms out here?" she said, suddenly wondering. "I guess I never thought about where all the food was coming from. I thought about how there was totally a shitload all the time, everywhere, but, I dunno."

[vocalfuel]

"Not a whole farm," I reply, thoughtful, head tilting to the side. "And I don't think there are any others. Not that are operational, anyway." We got lucky, the only thing about showing up here when the city was all but empty that I think that word would apply to. Prim and I could move in without anyone being the wiser, make the place our own. "Most of the food gets shipped in. But we do some things. Prim makes cheeses, I hunt. I don't really... trust all of that."

It's a lot to say, a somewhat startling burst of honesty. But then, it isn't like I really have a reason not to, especially with someone else for whom all of this isn't just normal.

[and_survive]

"Man, that's weird," she said. "I mean, sure, I'm glad that there's always enough food, because fuck being hungry all the time, but at least I always knew where it came from. Maybe I should start hunting."

[vocalfuel]

"Might not be a bad idea," I say. I'm not sure I should be encouraging someone else to do what I do, but the animals in these woods haven't seemed to be so limited, even less so than they were back home. It wouldn't stop me from eating if Ellie started hunting out here, too. She gets it, anyway. Most people here don't. "I'm glad there's enough, too. I still wouldn't want to rely on it."

[and_survive]

"I should keep my hand in, anyway," she said. "I could've taken that deer earlier, for sure, but if it'd been a harder shot... it's been a while."

Since she'd had to shoot anything. But if you had to shoot something, you had to be ready to shoot something.

"I thought about trying that gun club, in town? But I don't think they're exactly set up for people to come in and shoot bows."

[vocalfuel]

"Probably not," I say, one corner of my mouth quirking up. "I've never been." I wonder sometimes if I should. I'm as good with my bow as ever, but it's been a long time now since I've shot a gun, and I was never as comfortable with one anyway. When there's no telling what could happen around here, it might be a good idea to make sure I'm not too rusty, just in case it comes to that. "You had a gun, the day you got here. You good with one of those, too?"

[and_survive]

"Hell yeah I am," she said, automatically compelled to talk herself up, somehow, even though the circumstances of how she got so good with a gun didn't exactly bear scrutiny. She'd gotten good with the bow hunting for food, mostly; she'd used it for the other stuff but the practice had been hunting.

Guns... mostly her experience with guns was against other people with guns.

"Bows are quieter, but sometimes... sometimes you just need the stopping power. Point and shoot. Bang."

It was more of a philosophical bang than an exclamation, less enthusiastic than her first claim of competence. Just... bang. And the guy on the other end of it fell down. She'd gotten very used to it, and didn't always know how to feel about having gotten very used to it.

[vocalfuel]

I make a soft sound of agreement, wondering if maybe that's what I'm not so fond of about them. The stopping power. I've needed it, and it's saved my life, but it's ended others, and at my hand. It's not like I couldn't say the same and then some about my bow, but it feels different. There's less finesse involved. It gives the other person less of a chance, messy and brutal instead of clean and elegant. Of course, there's death either way, but I think it's because there's been so much of it that those differences seem important.

"I had to learn once," I say, and I'm not sure why. "Showed up with one. But I haven't used it since."

[and_survive]

"I went to this dumb military prep, once, trying to turn us all into good little soldiers, and they tried to teach us," she said, making a face as she thought about it. The group home was shitty, but not that shitty, comparatively. Didn't make her any more inclined to stay, but she tried to keep it in mind.

She didn't really manage that a lot when she was actually there.

"But I didn't really learn until- until you're actually in it, y'know?"

Until there was someone on the other end of it, and they were trying to kill you as much as you were trying to kill them.

[vocalfuel]

"I know," I say, nodding once. "You can do target practice and clean and reassemble a gun as many times as you want, but none of that prepares you for using one because you have to." They'd done what they could in Thirteen, trying to get us as ready as we could be, but it still wasn't the same. The dumb military prep she's mentioned doesn't seem like it was too different. I almost, almost manage a flicker of a smile anyway, thinking about how long it's been since someone called me Soldier Everdeen. That's not something I miss.

[and_survive]

"Yeah. Yeah. Until it's just you or..."

Them. Whoever it was trying to kill you, or that you had to take out because they would be trying to kill you if they knew you were there. Easier with the gun than the knife, at least. And not just because everyone she'd ever had to use the knife on had been twice her fucking size.

"Or," she concluded. Just, or. "And I never got the marching. No one marches in a fight, so why all the fucking marching?"

[vocalfuel]

"So they can sleep easier at night, maybe," I say, head tilting to the side, thoughtful. I've never really thought about it before, but it's the only thing I can come up with. "Pretend that it's something ordered and official when it's just... chaos." That or echoes in my head even as I speak. I know too well what's on the other side of it, find myself thinking, of all people, of the Capitol woman I killed when we broke into her house, whose boots I took. Of all the lives I've ended, that might be one of the most unsettling.

[and_survive]

"...I never thought of it like that," she said, thinking of what the Quarantine Zone had been like. Order layered over chaos like wallpaper over massive cracks in the wall. That seemed pretty accurate, to her.

"All those rules just so they can say there are rules and everything's going to be okay. Keeping everyone in line by keeping them in a line. Or something."

[vocalfuel]

"Yeah," I say, "something like that." Like Thirteen pretending to be so much better than the Capitol but torturing my stylists, and Coin sending Peeta along with the squad in the hopes that he'd kill me, sending Prim into a war zone. At the end of the day, there's not much good about either of them, but that semblance of decorum goes a long way, makes them feel better about themselves, lulls everyone else into a sense of security. I don't buy it. "Whatever helps them sleep better at night. While the rest of us..."

Don't, in my case, at least not for very long. I've long since grown used to the nightmares that keep me awake. No pretended order could have fought them off.

[and_survive]

"Not so much, huh?" she said, quietly, finding a stick on the ground and poking the ground with it. "Yeah, I get that."

It was a whole raft of factors. Getting used to a bed, for one thing. She'd thought it would've just been easy, been a relief, like, finally, but it'd turned out weird as hell. Then there were the dreams. She hadn't had so many while things had been happening, but now it was quiet it was like her brain had decided to maintain an even level of terror by throwing stuff at her in the night. It was bullshit.

[vocalfuel]

"Not in a long time," I say. In the Games, sleep had been a necessity, but so had limiting it. Too much or too little could both be the difference between life and death, depending. And after — well, after, you're still there, it's just all in your head, and it's usually worse. Going to bed is like an instant replay of everything I've done wrong, every life I've taken, every secret I've kept. I've at least gotten better at not waking up screaming, for Prim's sake. "Years. Which is... weird, to think about."

[and_survive]

"Years? Jeez, that's reassuring," she said, wincing slightly, but with a bluntly joking tone; she'd kind of hoped there was a chance that stuff would fade, but apparently not. So she made a joke of directness, just blurted it out, which she guessed was one way of coping.

[vocalfuel]

"Hate to break it to you, but yeah," I say, wry, mouth twisting to the side. It's easier, talking about it like this, rather than the details of the nightmares or the way it feels to wake up drenched in sweat, my heart racing. Whatever experience of her own Ellie has, I think those are things she'd know for herself. "Could be different for everyone, though."