Hunger Games, Gales POV (Everthorn)

The Day We Met

Hello! This is my first fanfic ever so please be nice. I just want y'all to know what to expect coming into this. So... here are my goals for the future of my writing and this story...
1.Add LOTS more detail
2.Focus more on Gale's life here
3.Write a fanfic where Gale goes into the games
4.Write a fanfic where Gale is the only one of them to go into the games

Please enjoy!

(Gale)

My feet followed their familiar path through the woods, leading me to my next trap. I'd been coming in the woods so long that I let my mind wander as my body did the work. Whenever I was in the woods, I let my mind run wild with the hate I held for the world, the capital that took a away children to their death, the mines that had killed my father, the starvation that had almost killed my family; all of it. I hated all of it. This was the only place I was free to say it though, free to be me. Alone.

As I approached my last trap I could feel it in the air, something was different then it had been before. I silently slipped behind a tree and observed my trap, holding it gently was a young girl, she didn't even seem old enough to be in the reaping. I could tell by her movements that she wasn't stealing from my trap, just examining it. I took the time to observe her. She wore a worn leather jacket that went down to her knees, definitely not her own, her hair was dark brown in a tight braid falling down her back, with grey eyes the color of mine. She could've been my sister, almost every girl in the seam could've been my sister. We all looked the same. This girl was different though, she didn't look helpless, she looked determined; a look that many had lost or never even found. The more I watched her, the more intrusive I felt, like I was disturbing a personal moment. After the few minutes I had spent watching her, I revealed myself.

"Stealing is illegal you know," every muscle in her body tightened as she turned towards me, taking in my words. She quickly wiped the fear from her face leaving it looking empty and uninterested.

"I wasn't stealing, I was looking. How did you catch this rabbit? My snares never catch anything," my mind reeled. I had never met another hunter before, it was illegal. Not only was it illegal, it was dangerous too. Most were to scared to even venture past the fence, much less this deep into the woods. Then I noticed something that should've caught my eye earlier, a bow. It was beautifully crafted and carefully slung over her right shoulder. All I had was knives, I would kill to get my hand on something that delicately dangerous. She continued to stare at me as my mind raced, thinking of how to get that bow.

"Where'd you get the bow?" I was dying to know. My father had always wanted a bow, he had been the one to teach me how to hunt, he was who had made these woods my safe haven. I'd tried to make my own weapons, but only the knives turned out, nothing like the bow she was holding.

"My father made it," with those few words,  I realized I did recognize this girl. She was an Everdeen, her father died in the same explosion that took mine. Her and I being the oldest meant we both received metals for our losses, we were the only two kids receiving metals that didn't cry. She was a few years younger then me.

"What's your name?" If she wasn't going to make this conversation go anywhere, I was. The more I looked at the bow on her shoulder, the more I wanted one. The only way to get one was to keep talking. I knew she had more, the one on her shoulder fit perfectly, not the size of a man. Her father must have had a separate one if he taught her how to hunt.

"Katniss," her voice was barely above a whisper, the confidence she had being lost now that she thought I was giving up on the one thing giving her an advantage over me, the bow. I could barely hear her.

"Catnip?" I took my best guess at what she had said, she already had been quiet to start, now she was almost inaudible.

"No. Katniss," she said almost confidently this time, she said it with a slight shake in her voice though.
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Months passed and then years, Katniss and I eventually learned how to stop fighting over food and start sharing. Enough trust was built that I was gifted with one of her fathers bows, in return I taught her how to make snares and knives. Slowly we stopped running from starvation and had enough food; but still some nights we went to bed with our stomachs grumbling. Katniss and I became more then just a team, we had become friends. The whole district assumed we'd marry once we were old enough, but neither of us ever gave that idea much thought. That was the future and we barely had the food to survive right now.