Gale in the Games [ON HOLD]

1-The woods

I watch the crisp red leaves fall from the huge tree in front of me and slowly swirl to the ground.  I sit, stalking my prey.  A small gray squirrel who, oblivious to my presence, is burying an acorn for safekeeping.  Quickly, but making sure not to make even the slightest noise, I load the arrow onto my bow and pull back.  I aim, and release.  As soon as the arrow impaled my catch, I hear a twig snap behind me.  On instinct, I load my bow and pull back, only to find Gale with his hands up in a surrender position.  "Damn you Gale, I almost shot you," I say as I put my arrow back in it's rightful place.  "That wouldn't have been very nice, now would it?" 

"Stop being a smartass Gale." 

"I'm not sorry.  Nice shot, by the way," he says as he walks up to the squirrel lying on the ground with an arrow through the eye, just like every animal I shoot.  While pulling the arrow out, I tell Gale we should go check his snares.  Maybe an unfortunate animal decided to get trapped today.  I stuff the squirrel into my game bag and we head off toward the series of traps waiting for nïave animals to come wandering in to.  "So Catnip," Gale calls me by my nickname I had gotten when we had just met.  I said my name so softly, he had thought I said Catnip.  It didn't help that a lynx followed me around for weeks after that.  I had to kill it, but it was a shame because that sneaky lynx was actually good company. "How many times is your name in today?"

"20.  You?"

"47."  47 times.  The odds definitely aren't in his favor Today. 

Carefully, we remove the animals from the snares and instinctively walk toward the clearing by the lake.  My father used to take me to this lake all the time.  Before he died in a mine explosion, that is.  It was kind of a secret place for just me and him that we could escape to.  I decided to show the lake to it to Gale too.  Gale's dad died in the same explosion and we met at a ceremony for the families of the victims, and then again in the woods hunting for out families to keep us from starving to death.  From then on, we became hunting buddies and almost like siblings. 

When we reach the clearing by the lake, we pick berries off of the bushes nearby.  We had found these bushes a while back, but it was Gale's idea to cover them with netting so the creatures of the woods couldn't get to them. 

"Oh by the way, look what I caught,"  Gale says as he holds up and arrow he must've stolen from me when I wasn't looking with a piece of bread throuh it, in an attempt to be funny, despite what day today is.  "Oh my God is This real?" I say in disbelief.

"It better be.  Cost me two squirrels.  Guess the guy was feeling a little sentimental, you know? With today being the reaping and all."

I break open the still warm bread fresh from the bakery and hold It to my nose.  "Prim left us a cheese too."

"Thanks you prim," Gale says to the air.  "Now we can have a real feast."