Office hours [all day Tuesday]

[sith_happened]

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]

Comments

[sith_happened]

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

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

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

[sith_happened]

"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."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

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."

[sith_happened]

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."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sith_happened]

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."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sith_happened]

That struck Anakin as a particularly cruel punishment.

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

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sith_happened]

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

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"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."

[sith_happened]

"Calling this terrible seems like such a small thing," Anakin said finally, "but it is. Top to bottom, the Games are wrong."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"I know," Katniss said quietly. "I had to win them. I know in and out how wrong they are. But there's little we can do to change them -- I'm a living example."

[sith_happened]

"It's been almost 75 years," Anakin said. "Aren't the districts tired of watching their children get slaughtered?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Katniss said with a shrug. "But defying the Capitol means retribution worse than the Games themselves."

[sith_happened]

"Obliteration," Anakin surmised. "But the harder they squeeze, the more will slip through their fingertips."

Leia had been right about that all those years ago.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"And how many more people will die?" Katniss replied.

[sith_happened]

"A lot," Anakin said quietly. "Your government doesn't believe they have any value except as a bargaining chip."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Including me," Katniss said, biting the inside of her cheek. "If I return to Panem and I'm not -- what they want, I'll be killed. Along with my family." She shook her head. "My time here should be spent practicing, but I don't know if I'll be able to maintain it."

[sith_happened]

"Would you like some help?" Anakin asked, then smiled a little ruefully. "I spent several years hiding my marriage from a group of people who could practically read my mind. I'm an excellent liar."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss' lips quirked in a humorless smile. "Funnily enough, I have the precise opposite problem. I'm a terrible liar, and the only way Peeta and I were able to stay alive in the arena was because we pretended to be in love. When I called him my boyfriend, it was because I still thought I was being watched. He's my friend, but back in Panem, I need to act like I'm driven crazy by love in his mere presence."

[sith_happened]

"Because being a hormonally driven teenager makes the dual-suicide attempt romantic," Anakin guessed, "and not a calculated undermining of the system. How long do you need to keep up the act?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Forever," Katniss said softly. "The country loves us. As long as I'm a lovesick girl who couldn't bring herself to kill her boyfriend, the Capitol can use me. And Peeta. And our relationship, and eventual marriage, and the children we'll be forced to have."

[sith_happened]

"I'm sorry," Anakin said sincerely. "At least here you have a break from all of the pretense? And perhaps his absence will make you appreciate Peeta more when you see him again."