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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"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.

"We threatened to kill ourselves," she said with a nod. "They decided they'd rather have two victors than none, and have the Games be a mockery. It was my idea, though. And now there are...problems, at home." Her eyes scanned his office for a moment, looking up to the ceiling and back again briefly. "They need me to be a symbol for the Capitol. A young lover driven insane by her desire to keep the man she holds dear alive. If I do not satisfy them, everyone and everything that I love will be killed. Including Peeta." She cleared her throat, and added, "The president himself said they would be watching me here."

"And you're here to find out if that's true or not," Anakin replied.

"Of course it's true," Katniss said, just in case, but she met his eyes in a silent plea. "The Capitol can do anything. They filmed every minute of every Game, after all."

"Did they chip you?" Anakin asked, frowning slightly. "That's how they would track slaves at home decades ago."

"In the arena," she said. "It's gone now." She held out her arm to show him the perfectly smooth, pale skin, and pointed to the spot where they'd injected her tiny tracker. "They removed it when they took off all my scars, afterwards."

"That seems excessive," Anakin replied. "How did they say they would watch you if it wasn't through your person?"

"Their cameras are microscopic," Katniss told him quietly.

"Our security is better," he said firmly. "Nothing is watching you that doesn't have a furry tail."

"Are you sure?" Katniss asked, her voice scarcely above a breath. "The Capitol is capable of anything."

"I'm completely sure," Anakin replied. "I can confirm it with our head of security if you'd like, but I think you can breathe a least a little easier while you're with us, Miss Everdeen."

She exhaled, visibly relaxing. "You have a sense for these things," she said, tilting her head at him. "Ben tried to assure me, too, but said that you would know for sure."

He nodded. "I have an affinity with machinery," he said, "and I have since I was very young. Jedi are trained to notice and interfere with security cameras when necessary." He smiled. "There aren't any around."

"Thank you," she sighed, her shoulders slumping. "It doesn't change much, but I feel like I can breathe for the first time in months."

He smiled again. "Good. Here you can ask questions and learn, which I'm sure the Capitol was probably trying to avoid by scaring you as they did."

"That's what I need to do here," she said, nodding. "I need as many skills as possible. I'll have to train next year's tributes."

That struck Anakin as a particularly cruel punishment.

"So even when you win, you lose?" he said.

"No one ever wins the Hunger Games," Katniss said a bit bitterly. "Next year, there will be another little boy and little girl I'll have to send to their deaths. Though it is the Quarter Quell, so it'll probably be particularly cruel."

"I'm almost afraid to ask how it can be crueler than sending 23 teenagers to their deaths," Anakin replied.

"The Twenty-Fifth Hunger Games had an election, rather than a lottery, so people had to choose which children to send to the arena," she said, not bothering to hide the disgust. "The year my mentor won, the Fiftieth Games, there were twice as many tributes as usual. Forty-seven children sent to their deaths."

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