Dawn of the Heart (An Everlark Fanfiction)

Chapter I

Those woods. The same woods he grew up hearing horrifying stories from. Late nights in the Meadow, bonfires and the company of his brothers from the Company, sharing tales they had heard from their fathers and their fathers before them.

They could be total fiction as well as they could hold some truth to them. Well, they did, or so he thought.

Those woods; they were wicked. No one sane would dare to step a foot, and whoever did would never come back. That was a fact.

Monsters and walking trees could be just mind playing tricks.

That's what Finnick said when he ventured into those woods weeks ago. The Company labelled him as a deserter, the medicine-men said he could be suffering a mind disease. The
rumours among his brothers, on the other hand, were that he was bewitched.

It didn't matter to Peeta which story holds truth, he was going to find Finnick and bring him back home. He would venture into those woods for long he knew he wasn't sane.

He was only ten when he lost everything. He had seen his mother burning, his brothers passing from the smoke. His father's screams to flee from that inferno. He had barely left the small two stories house when it collapsed on the ground. Ashes in the snow, fire meeting ice and one shadow in the shape of a woman holding a torch not far from the fence separating them from the forest. That was the last thing he had seen before his eyes went black and his face met the snow.

After days venturing the streets, his burned clothes did nothing to prevent him from the cold. His stomach grumbled loudly as he searched for every bit of food he could find it in the bins yet nothing stopped the ache in his stomach. Or in his heart. He may have lived through that night but he sure was as good as dead.

It was Christmas night when he felt it. It didn't matter what turns he took or what food he put in his mouth; he saw her. Death took shape that of the woman he had seen before passing out in front of the burning house. Everywhere he went there she was, in the corner, waiting for him, luring him. He ran and ran but nothing stopped her, she was closer every step he took. That's when he collapsed and opened his arms to her. Her bony fingers painted in piche scared him as she caressed his left cheek. He looked up to her mercury irises, the only thing about her that wasn't pure black, as he embraced in the arms of Death.

That's what Peeta saw that night in front of the Town Church. What the Company saw, however, was a collapsed boy in the cobblestone steps of the Church.

For weeks he was taken care of. It was almost heavenly, he thought. There was good soup, but they were not as good as his father's. He was never cold, not even in the deep hours of the night, yet it wasn't as homely as his father's arms. He had a new life, a new chance but his heart still ached with the loss of his family.

But she never left.

He may have never had to deal with an empty stomach or the cold night wind breaking his bones anymore, yet she remained. Death kept following him, lurking in the shadows, watching his very step.

That was something he never told anyone. Not even Finnick.

Finnick...

Finnick was there for him since the beginning. When the other boys would comment within their groups about the new boy found almost dead, Finnick was the only one that looked at him. To others, he was gossip, but to Finnick was finally a person.

He helped him through his grief and the start of his new life, to serve the Company and protect the good people against the deeds of the Enemy. Especially witches.

"Those are evil creatures, Mr. Mellark" said Father Heavensbee when he was healthy enough to attend classes. "They were created by the Enemy himself; his followers on Earth, to stain the Only God's beautiful work. They are not human. No, no. That's why we built the Company. To protect and serve the Only God and His people"

He had never seen a witch before the incident with his family. The other boys claimed to have slaughtered villages full of them. Where they would sacrifice new-borns for immortality and engage in orgies with the Enemy, praising him as a god. Finnick would laugh, his green eyes watering with tears, while others would shiver in fear or close their fists in anger. Peeta's friend never believed in any of that.

"Actually, Peeta. I think that those witches don't even exist!"

Finnick confined him years ago when Peeta started training. It didn't shock him that confession, though Peeta knew he was wrong. Witches existed and one of them had killed his family and sent Death to follow him everywhere he went.

For Finnick was three years older than him, they never shared any classes together. However, that never stopped the two of them to bond. Finnick had seen the pain in Peeta's eyes, the same pain he felt years ago, and kept him under his wing. With his bright personality and a serious difficulty to take things seriously, the bronze-haired boy reminded Peeta of his older brothers, or the little he could remember of them.

Finnick's opinion, however soon changed after his first mission. The lively boy was still there, of course but the world outside the stone walls of the Academy changed something deep in his core.

"The things I've seen, Peeta... Those creatures, they were... devilish. That's how I can describe them. I thought those were legends, stories to encourage us to train, to make us fear something we've never seen. But they were right. It is very much worse." Finnick confessed the night he came back. Peeta had seen the uneasiness in the green eyes of his friends since he came from the big heavy doors of the Salon. Finnick, however, never said what he had seen. He knew it was bad. He only knew how much when he saw it himself too.

His first mission happened on the beginning of autumn. He still remembered how the leaves would fall on the streets of the Merchants Avenue, the streets were still crowed with families trying to buy as much food as possible before it got any colder and food was no longer available.

There was an anonymous complaint about a suspicious woman living on the second floor of the Shoe Shop. The Cartwrights, the owners, had been through a very delicate situation since the wife, Donna, and two of the five children she bore with her husband, Brandon, fell ill suddenly the summer before. The denouncer, however, had seen a mysterious woman walking freely along the second floor with suspicious activities, such as drawing weird patterns on the walls of the sickened, speaking in tongues, along with the usage of smoke and candles that were not used for lightening purposes. Classical. Nothing he had never heard before, not counting with the adventurous and very much faux tales of his brothers in the Academy.

Nothing came of it. No woman was found nor were the drawn patterns found on the walls.

It was fairly common, as said Father Heavensbee. The commoners were afraid. Afraid of them, afraid of the forest cornering the District.

Guilt was all he felt. His very first mission as a Black Knight was nothing more than smoke.

"There is nothing to be worried about, my boy" he said "Sometimes we see things that aren't there"

Those words hit him, for he remembered her. She was still there. Or was she?

Part of him wanted to speak to the medicine-men about her . It could be a mind disease for all he knew, tormenting him since he was a child. What could come of it? He thought. Being labeled as mentally-ill would remove him of his sacred role as sworn member Black Knight.

Where else would he go? What else could he do for the Company that saved him from death. He had a debt to pay; to serve the Only God and save Earth from all un-Godly creatures. That was his role all along.

Then, no more than a week after his failed mission, Finnick was not to be found inside the walls of the Company. Or even within the walls of the Academy tower, even if he hadn't set a foot since there since his first mission when his chambers were moved to the Company tower. The Great Building had two grand towers with the Church in middle and Finnick was no more than cold breeze flying through the walls.

But Peeta would find him. That's what he knew. His first mission was a failure but bringing him back and proving he was not a deserter, that would be his mission. He just needed proof.

But the first step was to find him and he knew exactly where to go. He just knew.

A shiver went down his spine as he faced the forest before him. He knew this was something Finnick would do for him; they may not be related by blood, but they were brothers and that was all that mattered, he told himself as each step sent him closer and closer to the forest.