sith_happened | Office hours [all day Tuesday]

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Office hours [all day Tuesday]

Anakin had spent yesterday at Jan's third birthday party.

Today he was working on an extensive list of how Juliet's party (in June, so he had a finely honed sense of perspective here) would be better in every way.

He wondered how much it would cost to buy a circus...

The door was open.

[OOC: Up early for great SP and time zone justice issues]

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Ben had suggested it, and Katniss -- after weighing the idea in her head for a weekend -- was here. She'd be cautious, but it wouldn't hurt to add another adult to her list of people she could trust in Fandom.

It was a pretty short list.

So, Tuesday found her knocking lightly on the door and peeking in.

Anakin shoved his list under his desk calendar as he looked up. "Katniss? Come in."

She eyed the movement. "Secret project?" she asked with a raised brow.

"Birthday presents for my youngest daughter," he said with a slightly sheepish smile. "I wish to get an early start."

In a way, she could relate -- she'd gone to so many efforts to get Lady for Prim, after all. "How old is she?"

"Fifteen months old," Anakin said proudly, turning the holoframe on his desk to show what seemed like a short three dimensional movie of a blonde, curly haired little girl with bright blue eyes chasing puppy.

Katniss leaned down to study the film, actually smiling for once. "She resembles you."

He smiled back. "I think she looks like her mother," he said. "So what brings you here today? Are you in the market for toddler gift ideas as well?"

"Sadly I know no toddlers," Katniss admitted, and the confident facade began to crack, just slightly. "Your...grandson recommended I see you. And I've been meaning to for some time."

Anakin's eyes focused intently on her face. "Did he?" he replied. "Would you prefer to close the door?"

"It won't help," Katniss whispered, barely above a breath, but she closed the door immediately.

"My...world is very different from this one," she began carefully. She had figured that if she were to work the cameras into the conversation organically, he might be able to tell her if they were there or not without her possibly incriminating herself.

He nodded. "The way you worked through the infiltration class indicated a bit of that," he said. "Tell me about it."

"My country, Panem," she said, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice, "is divided into twelve districts. Formerly thirteen. Seventy-four years ago, there was a great rebellion against our Capitol, because the inhabitants of the districts felt that they were being treated unfairly. Conditions in the districts have always been poor, particularly as you move further and further away from the Capitol, where they always have enough."

Anakin nodded. "I grew up in an outlying region of my galaxy as well," he said. "How did the rebellion turn out?"

Given how nervous she seemed, he was betting on "not great."

"The districts lost. That's why there are only twelve of them now. Thirteen was destroyed as an example to the rest of us," Katniss said quietly. "And for the last seventy-four years, the Capitol has chosen a specific way to punish the districts, called the Hunger Games."

He had a bad feeling about this. "How do the Games work?" he asked.

"It's a lottery," Katniss said dully. "One boy and one girl from every district, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are selected to compete. They're put into the arena, with some weapons and minimal food. Whoever's the last left standing of the twenty-four wins."

Anakin's jaw dropped. "Children are forced to fight each other? And have been for seventy four years?"

He was suddenly and intensely grateful the Emperor hadn't come up with this idea.

"To the death," Katniss said with a nod. "It's our punishment for rebellion."

Anakin did the math on how many children had been executed in this manner, and his eyes flashed with barely suppressed rage.

"For something that happened two generations before you were born," Anakin corrected. "It's a barbaric practice."

On cue, his mind brought forth memories of Topwara, a planet bombed back to pre-space flight technology for their collusion with the Rebellion. When he'd still been Darth Vader he'd visited and watched the population crawl on their bellies to beg for food. The remembrance turned his stomach.

"Have you known someone involved in the Games?" he asked.

"I won the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games," Katniss said quietly, without any pride whatsoever. It wasn't something to be proud of. Or ashamed of, even. It just was, and she didn't like thinking about it.

But nothing she had said would be seen as defiant within the Capitol's purview, and she was getting to where she could explain the cameras, and possibly detect if they were there. That was the important part.

And Fandom claimed another student who'd had to grow up too soon. Anakin guessed that was probably what had drawn Ben to her.

"So your reward was being sent here?" he replied, brow furrowing. "Or are the two not really related?"

"My punishment," she said, shaking her head. "I'm in exile, because I broke the rules when I won. Only one tribute can win. But halfway through our Games, the Gamemakers changed the rules. They said that provided that two tributes came from the same district, they could both win. My...boyfriend, Peeta," and it was difficult to call him that, because it was hard to imprison what she felt about Peeta within a label, "was the other tribute. He and I hid out for the last third or so of the Games, because he was dying of a leg wound. In the end, it was us versus a Career -- a tribute bred from birth to be part of the Hunger Games, and trained to be better, stronger, and faster than the rest of us. I killed him. And then it was Peeta and me. And the Gamemakers changed their minds. Only one victor."

You may fire when ready, Anakin heard in his memory, and he winced in sympathy.

"So you outsmarted them somehow," he said, "and so now a teenager must be punished because Force forbid the Capitol appear weak for even a moment."

It wasn't really a guess; it was more a remembrance of how things worked in a totalitarian government.

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