Who: Cassie Sullivan & Katniss Everdeen (& Annie Odair, briefly) What: meeting, getting Cassie settled in When: the day Cassie arrived (which was a long time ago idk super backdated) Where: Cassie's room -> clothing makers -> back to the rooms -> mess hall Warnings: paranoia and tension? There's a little bit of dark canon themes in both their narratives.
The moment Cassie had made it to the room she’d been assigned, she had searched it very carefully, then locked herself in the bathroom. It took her about half an hour of standing by the door with her gun, backpack at her feet, before she’d finally been drawn to the shower, and even after stripping and stepping under the hot water, she’d made sure the Luger would be easy to reach if she needed it. The shower itself had then taken another half hour, because it had been months since she’d had one, and this was kind of what she thought Heaven might feel like.
Now, it was two hours later and she sat in the corner, blocked by the sink, with her M16 in hand and backpack beside her as she stared down at the device on her lap. While she still wasn’t sure she fully believed anyone she’d spoken to on this...network...Cassie was getting tired. She was tired of not trusting people, tired of going forward, and tired of trying to fulfill an impossible promise - and with this kind of setback, she didn’t have any choice but to trust someone. This is what they did to us. They made us stop trusting each other. The words were a litany in her mind and they nearly brought tears to her eyes from the fact that they were true. Shaking her head, she finally slipped the device into her backpack and waited for this Katniss person to show up.
--
Trusting people didn’t come easily to Katniss either, and for the most part she kept to herself. But the image of the young girl on the network who was afraid that someone was going to kill her had resonated with her too deeply for her to ignore it. Even though it was dangerous, she couldn’t stop herself from offering to help. That was, she reflected, probably her fatal flaw -- and yet, it was also the only thing that she genuinely liked about herself. Without her empathy and protective instincts, she was just a cold-blooded survivor who would lie, manipulate, and kill to keep herself alive.
She was turning that over in her head as she got ready to leave her room. She was going to meet a scared, jumpy girl who had at least two guns, so she changed quickly into her Mockingjay suit. It might not be necessary, but if she didn’t wear it, she might end up regretting it. Even if it wasn’t Cassie who ended up trying to hurt her. Cassie wasn’t the only one who was paranoid.
Holding her bow ready at her side where she could lift it and string an arrow in a moment if she had to, she left her room and headed for Cassie’s. Outside the door, she hesitated a few feet away, and then reached out and knocked three times. Then she said, “It’s Katniss. Uh… Justin Bieber sucks.”
She couldn’t help wondering who the hell that was. The name sounded ridiculous, just saying it, but then Snow and Coin’s names probably seemed harmless enough and maybe a little ridiculous to people who didn’t know who they were.
Just to be safe, she stepped a little over to the side as soon as she finished speaking. The doors were pretty solid and would probably stop a bullet if Cassie tried to shoot through them, but if she came out shooting -- well, there was only so much Katniss could do to defend herself against a gun. The Mockingjay suit wouldn’t protect her against a head shot. Nevertheless, her bow stayed at her side for now, even if she was tensed and ready to draw it up and shoot.
--
Cassie had been straining to listen for the sounds, and when the knocks came they were faint, thanks to her being in the other room. The distant words afterwards were barely there, barely distinguishable, but they had the teenager tensing. For a long moment, she didn’t move, but finally she stood slowly. The backpack was hefted onto one shoulder, along with the M16, but she then drew the Luger and started forward. After stepping out of the bathroom, Cassie started the slow trek across the living room, then stopped several feet back from the door.
“...Say it again,” she called out, holding the gun carefully with both hands, safety off. She had no idea whether or not she’d have to use it, but if she did, well, Cassie wasn’t going to go out unless it was to go out fighting.
--
It was almost impressive, Katniss reflected vaguely, to meet someone who was even more paranoid than she was. Then again, from what she’d read about Cassie’s world, the dangers there were even more subtle than the ones Katniss had known. Not that there weren’t subtle dangers in Panem, either, but at least she didn’t have to doubt whether the people around her were even human. Plenty of them had ulterior motives, and even the people she trusted could be turned and used against her, but it wasn’t quite the same thing.
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. This felt a little bit like being back at the Nut, waiting for the survivors to come out through the train tunnel -- and she might well end up at gunpoint now, just as she had then. She might even be shot. Maybe she shouldn’t have come, or at least told someone where she was going.
But she made herself relax. “Justin Bieber sucks,” she said again, feeling no less ridiculous than she had the first time. “Whoever he is.”
--
Cassie let out a slow breath, but didn’t lower the gun. Instead, she took slow steps until she reached the door, one hand lifting to the lock and resting on it briefly. It was now or never, and despite the fact that she wished for “never”, if there was even a possibility of Sammy being alive anywhere in this place, she had to take the chance. The risk. Unlocking the door, she dropped her hand to the doorknob, then slowly pulled it open. The gun was still in her other hand, and while her hand was shaking somewhat and her eyes were terrified, she didn’t blink.
--
Right before the door opened, Katniss lifted her hands in front of her in a peaceful gesture. She was still holding her bow, but it was unstrung, hanging between her thumb and forefinger, the rest of her fingers spread to show there was nothing else in her hands. Her quiver of arrows was visible over her shoulder.
When she saw the fear in the other girl’s face, she was glad she’d done it. Swallowing down her own fear, she said simply, “Hi.”
--
Cassie frowned at first, blinking as she studied the girl. She hadn’t expected the avatar to actually look like the person, and so seeing a brunette Jennifer Lawerence standing in front of her was something of a shock, especially dressed like a character she was pretty sure she’d seen on a poster or something the year before. More strangeness for this place, but even actors might somehow survive, right? Or this really was someone named Katniss who knew how to survive in the woods.
The bow caught her attention a moment later. For killing another person, she didn’t think it could be as fast or as efficient as a gun - and that actually caused her to trust her just a tiny bit more. When Katniss spoke, Cassie’s eyes lifted again, focusing on hers, and she was reminded briefly of the Crucifix Soldier, whom she’d killed in the gas station. She’d thought he was reaching for a gun, when he moved, but this girl...she wasn’t moving.
Finally, she lowered the gun slowly, figuring that if she got killed at this point, it would be because she deserved it. “Hi,” she said quietly, flicking the safety back on with her thumb as the gun pointed at the floor between them.
--
Katniss waited for the gun to lower, for Cassie to respond, before she slowly started to lower her hands. She shifted the bow up onto her shoulder, glad that she hadn’t been shot yet. It was still a possibility, she knew, but so far so good. She would notice if Cassie went for the gun again, and she was faster and better with the bow than the girl would probably expect. But that didn’t guarantee she wouldn’t also get hurt, so she was going to try to make sure this went as smoothly as possible.
She stepped backward, making more room for the other girl in the hallway. She wasn’t going to turn her back on her, though. “Come on,” she said. “It’s not far.”
--
When the bow was shouldered, Cassie hesitated for a long minute again, then finally slipped the Luger into its usual place: the back waistband of her jeans. She shifted her large backpack a bit and stepped out into the hallway. Drawing the apartment door shut, she moved next to Katniss, also unwilling to turn her back on the other teen. She looked tough - like she was a fighter, and not the karate that Cassie knew. She wasn’t going to ask though, not now anyway.
“Alright...let’s go,” she said, wondering if Katniss would comment on the fact that she carried all of her belongings with her. She wasn’t willing to let anything out of her sight, not yet.
--
Katniss didn’t need to ask about the backpack. It reminded her all too well of the one she’d had in the arena the first time, and how she’d never let it out of her sight. This place still felt like the arena to her sometimes, even though she’d been able to relax a little bit -- at least, enough to trust the people around her weren’t going to try to kill her out of nowhere. Obviously, Cassie didn’t have that luxury, and Katniss wasn’t going to try to talk her out of it.
She fell into step beside her, heading down the hallway and out of the residential area, in the direction of the crafts workshops. “You’re probably used to cold weather,” she said, after a moment, just to fill the silence. “But this world is really cold. It’s something to do with all the radiation.”
Not for the first time, she found herself missing the cold weather clothes that Cinna had designed for her, the kind that could reflect her body heat and make her sweat even in incredibly cold temperatures. She’d picked up plenty from the clothing makers, and she had her father’s hunting jacket back in her room, but none of it was quite the same.
--
“Not very used,” she replied, her eyes constantly moving as they walked down the hall. “It was only just starting to get colder - but it’s almost time for it to snow. Back there. And those can be bad in Ohio,” she said, then looked over at Katniss.
“So there is radiation here? Doesn’t that mean we’re all sick?” Maybe this was the 5th Wave. Irradiate the planet to kill all the people. That would be a good way to get rid of those who’d survived everything else, especially the plague.
--
“There was a nuclear war,” Katniss said. “Or at least that’s what they say.” She had no proof to back up that claim, and she wasn’t going to pretend she did, even if she believed it. “I’ve been here for months, and it hasn’t made me sick.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “But it’s changed the animals, and the plants. You’ll see what I mean, when we go outside.”
--
The addendum about what others had said made it a little more easier to trust Katniss, and a part of Cassie couldn’t help but wonder if that was why she’d said it, to make this an us vs them situation. Were they even an us? She wasn’t sure, not really, and she hated having to second guess everything. What she wouldn’t give for the normal life she’d had six months previously. Pushing thoughts of the past away, she focused on what the other girl was saying.
“Is it safe to even be here, then? Or to eat these animals or plants?” And really, why would Katniss tell her all of this when they could have killed her at any point by now? Maybe she really was just trying to help.
Maybe this was a place full of humans.
--
“Safe?” Katniss glanced over at her, a little wryly. “I don’t know, but that’s what we have to eat. It hasn’t made me sick so far. They have farms down here in the bunker, too, with animals that haven’t been outside, but I’d rather eat the stuff I hunt. People keep showing up, we need all the resources we can get.”
She turned a corner, and stopped in front of a door. “We’re going in here. There might be a fair number of people around.” There had been a few visible in the hallways, too, going about their own business, but having to actually interact with the people who made clothes was an entirely different story. Watching Cassie carefully, she added, “I know some of them. One of them better than the others. She won’t be armed, except maybe with knitting needles.”
--
“You know what I meant,” was Cassie’s reply in response to the question. When Katniss continued, she became quiet, listening with a faint frown on her lips. The whole people showing up thing bugged her, because the idea of showing up in a pod in general and not remembering it bothered her, but she decided not to get into that as she realized they were slowing down.
Studying the door, Cassie’s lips twitched faintly in an ironic manner, and had it been six months ago, she might have laughed at that. Her eyes shifted back to Katniss and she waved a hand at the door. “I’m not going to open fire on a room full of seamstresses,” she said, though at this point there was no reason why she shouldn’t - or why Katniss should think she shouldn’t.
“Let’s go in.”
--
Katniss hesitated a moment longer, only because Annie was behind the door, and maybe Penelope, and risking their safety was an entirely different thing from risking her own. Then there was Baelfire’s dad, whose presence always put her on edge, and it wasn’t a combination she liked. But Cassie hadn’t shot her yet, and she seemed to be relaxing a little, so she opened the door. Keeping her body partially turned towards Cassie, she stepped inside, leaving room for the other girl to enter with her.
She spotted Annie first, and headed over to her. “We need warm clothes,” she said, tilting her head in Cassie’s direction. “For her.”
--
If Annie noticed the Mockingjay suit or the fact that they were both armed and thought anything of it, it didn’t show. She got to her feet and returned soon enough with an armful of coats, gloves, hats, and scarves, putting them down on the table she’d been working on. “Here,” she said warmly to Cassie, “I think these are your size.”
--
When they stepped in, Cassie looked around quickly, taking in as much a she could without tensing too much, then followed Katniss over to a woman. She waited to be interrogated as to why she wanted the clothes and what she was planning, and blinked in surprise at the amount of clothes that were brought back. When she reached out to them, her movements were tentative, but slowly grew surer as she went through the pile and no one told her to stop.
“...You have a good eye,” she told the woman absently, then started to pick out a few items, though she wasn’t really sure how much she’d need in the woods there. Mostly she stuck with darker colors that could blend in easier in the forest, or so she thought, but she did cave in to the desire for something nice slightly and picked up a pretty green scarf that was her exact favorite shade.
--
“Take a few things that you can layer,” Katniss recommended, watching her sift through the pile herself. “None of them on their own is going to be enough if you’re out for a long time.”
She was prepared to offer more advice, but Cassie looked like she was figuring it out. When she spotted a light, long-sleeved knitted sweater, she reached out and took hold of it, offering it to the younger girl. “Like this.”
--
“And don’t forget hats and gloves, at least one of each,” Annie added, looking pleased with the compliment. She was wearing one of her own knitted sweaters, a green and blue garment, and rested both hands on her lower belly as she watched them go through the clothes. “Have you got those? Oh - that’s a nice scarf. I like the green.”
--
Cassie took the sweater from Katniss with a nod of thanks, adding it to the collection she was working on, and at Annie’s suggestion, she chose a pair of heavy gloves and a pair of fingerless gloves, then a hat, and added them as well. The scarf was still in one of her hands as she half considered putting it back, then looked up at the compliment on the accessory.
Her own response took a few seconds longer to come, mainly because she wasn’t used to giving out personal information like that, not anymore at least, because she wasn’t the same Cassie she’d been before. “...It’s my favorite color,” she admitted at last, because really what was the harm in such a small confession? After debating it mentally, the redhead finally folded it and lay it across the top of her pile, before looking at Katniss again.
“Do I have enough?”
--
Katniss’ lips quirked up into a slight smile. “It’s my favorite color, too.”
She took the question seriously, though, and surveyed the items that Cassie had picked out. She reached out to touch the coat, feeling the weight of it. “I think you’re good on these. Do you have any extra pairs of pants to wear on top of those? And warm socks?”
--
“I have a pair of cargo pants, and yeah - warm socks.” She shifted her full-to-the-top backpack a bit, then pushed a few curls out of her eyes, looking back down at the collection. She was surprised to have the same favorite color ast Katniss, but that was actually kind of nice. She hadn’t had a friend in months, that this...it almost felt nice having some kind of connection with her.
“I guess I should probably take a pair of these flannel pants though, just to be sure?” And on so saying, she picked one out of the pile and checked the size against herself, then added it to the rest.
--
Annie nodded in agreement, and then moved away again for a moment, coming back with a handful of knitted socks. “Take an extra pair of these, too, just in case. We’ve made a lot of them.”
She smiled at Cassie, a little vaguely, as if her thoughts were somewhere else. “If you need something else, you can come back.”
--
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping the socks up in the jacket and sliding all of it into the coat before bundling it up. “I will, if I need to.” She nearly gave a smile back, then turned away and nodded at Katniss. “Thanks for bringing me down here.” Next on her own personal list was to visit the supposed mess hall and actually eat something. She’d passed it earlier and the smells had been enticing, but the need to be clean and calm down had overcome her at the time.
--
Katniss could see that Annie had already started to tune them out, and was a little bit glad that Cassie had already turned away, before she could see Annie doing anything strange. Not that it would be anything hostile or likely to put the girl on edge, but still.
“No problem,” she said, as she headed away. She was beginning to regret her own choice of clothes for this meeting; Mockingjay suit felt stiff and official, and the danger seemed to have passed, some trust had been established, tentative as it was. “Do you want to try going outside a little ways? I’ll have to go and get my coat first, but we can, if you want.”
--
“Maybe in a little while,” Cassie said while they left the room. “I was actually thinking of getting something to eat...it seemed like someone was cooking here and - I didn’t use fires because I didn’t want to be found. So if there’s hot food...I kind of want to try it.” She looked down at the bundle in her arms. “After I drop this stuff off, I guess.”
--
“I should go change anyway,” Katniss said. “I can walk back with you.” She wouldn’t have minded going to the mess hall either, but she was a little wary of getting too familiar too fast, or making Cassie feel like Katniss didn’t think she could handle anything on her own. The comment about the fires and the wariness regarding establishing Katniss’ identity had made it obvious that she had at least some basic survival instincts, and if she had an independent streak anything like Katniss’s, she probably wanted to be self-sufficient. Truth be told, Katniss probably didn’t need another person to look after, either, even if she wouldn’t entirely be able to help it.
On the other hand, it wasn’t often she had so much in common with someone around here, and she wasn’t going to overlook that, either. “The food is pretty good. Other people complain about it, but I think they’re used to having whatever they want, whenever they want it.”
--
“I was like that, before,” she replied simply. Now, though, she was looking forward to eating something that wasn’t sardines. She used to hate sardines, but then they had become one of her favorite things to eat, when all she could find were cans of them, overlooked by looters. Cassie held her bundle of warm clothes carefully, trying to keep an eye out for any threats at the same time, but she was already starting to relax just a little more than she’d thought she would.
“...Do you want to get something to eat, too?” She asked it hesitantly as they turned her hall heading for her room. “We can meet in the mess after you change, if you want.”
--
Katniss glanced over at her, and decided that the offer was genuine. She didn’t quite smile - her real smiles were still relatively rare, except around people she knew well - but her expression looked a little warmer. “Sure.”
When they’d reached the turnoff for Cassie’s hall, she stopped, and gestured down the hall towards 504. “I’m down there. I’ll meet you at the mess in about ten minutes.” She paused, and then said lightly, half-joking, “Same password?”
--
Cassie had nodded and turned to head for her room, but stopped at Katniss’s question. She hesitated, then finally looked at her and gave a faint smile, nodding. “Trust me - if you’d ever heard him, you’d understand,” the redhead told her, then started back down the hall. She was looking forward to seeing Katniss again at the mess hall, but for the moment she needed to put down the bundle and then decide whether or not she would bring her pack with her.
Which was actually pretty likely, for today anyway.
--
That really didn’t enlighten Katniss as much as she’d have liked, but she supposed it really didn’t matter. From the sound of it, her life was better without knowing who Justin Bee-burr was.
She turned down the hall and headed to her room to change. She emerged a few minutes later, having exchanged her Mockingjay suit for a pair of dark green, fitted pants, Peeta’s blue shirt, and her father’s hunting jacket. She left her bow behind, too, because she wasn’t in the habit of carrying it around in the bunker, but she did have the small knife she’d acquired here in her pocket. Her hair was, as before, pulled back into its usual braid. She felt much more like herself now, which made her feel even better than being armed, although she fully expected Cassie to bring at least one of her guns along.
She headed to the mess hall, leaning against the wall outside to wait. When Cassie reappeared, she said, very dryly, “Justin Bieber still sucks.”
--
Cassie had returned to her own room and dropped off the warm clothes on her bed, and after a several minutes of speculating, she reluctantly lifted her mattress and slipped the M16 rifle underneath. It took her another few minutes of heavy internal debate before she finally left the room and made her way to the mess hall. She still had the Luger in the back of her jeans and the backpack over her shoulder, unwilling to leave all of that behind just yet. Who knew if the place wouldn’t be attacked and she had to make a run for it?
Turning the corner, she spotted Katniss and took a deep breath, then walked over to the other girl, nodding at the password. “Yeah, he does,” she replied.
--
Katniss uncrossed her arms, deliberately, so that Cassie could see she wasn’t holding anything, and then pushed away from the wall. “At some point you’ll have to tell me who that is, and why you dislike him so much.”
It didn’t matter much, she assumed. If it was someone Cassie really minded talking about, she never would have brought him up, even as a password. Turning, she fell into step beside the other girl as they headed into the mess hall.
Figuring the other girl was hungry, she headed straight for the food. She picked up one of the buns with cheese on it, knowing Peeta had made it fresh that morning, and then loaded her plate with food -- generously, but not too generously. She wanted to keep her few extra pounds on her bones for as long as she could, but she was wary of the fact that they didn’t ration everything as carefully here as they did in Thirteen. Which meant they might, at some point, run out of food.
“Venison’s fresh,” she said to Cassie, after taking her own helping of it, which someone had made into a stew. “I shot the deer this morning.”
--
“It’s NBD. No big deal. He’s this Canadian singer who has the absolutely worst songs you’ve ever heard, but for some reason all the teens and tweens love - loved - him,” Cassie replied as she walked with Katniss. In fact, talking about something normal like music, while surreal, seemed a lot better than talking about killing people or starving. The mess hall was a lot bigger than Cassie had thought, but thankfully there didn’t seem to be too many other people around. It sort of felt like a school cafeteria, but the fact that it was under a mountain ruined that somewhat. Following her over to the food, Cassie’s mouth actually began to water at the smells, and she reached out for a roll to put it on a plate, then reached for a second and stopped, looking at Katniss.
“Um - is there a limit on how much you can have?” She figured there probably would be, but the smells were driving her crazy.
--
“Not unless they tell you,” Katniss said. She nodded at the roll. “Take it. There’s no point in going hungry.”
Well, there were reasons to go hungry, a little bit hungry at least, if it meant that everyone had enough to survive. But there was plenty of food in front of them right now, and a lot of it would go to waste if it wasn’t eaten, so Katniss didn’t see the point. Maybe a food shortage would happen, maybe it wouldn’t, but they would survive it better if they weren’t hungry for quite as long, anyway.
--
Cassie hesitated, then picked up the second roll and added it to her plate, before stepping over to the stew. She filled a bowl up to the top, nodding at the mention of it being fresh - and trying not to actually drool. It’d been forever since she’d had hot, cooked meat and she was definitely looking forward to it.
After following Katniss to get a drink, she sat across from her at a table and set down her tray, then dug straight into the food, her eyes for once not roaming her surroundings, looking for a threat.
--
She had been really hungry, Katniss could tell. She could practically feel the hunger herself, since it was such a familiar sensation to her. The warm food filling an empty stomach was easy enough to recall, too, and was nearly as appealing for her. She was glad to see that it seemed to be relaxing Cassie, too, and hid a smile as she dug her spoon into the stew.
“Careful,” she advised, before taking her first bite. “If it’s been a long time since you’ve eaten anything like this, your stomach won’t be used to it.”
--
Cassie wanted to argue, but she recognized somewhere in there that what Katniss was saying was making sense. So with visible effort, the redhead slowed down and picked up one of the rolls, dipping it in the soup. She paused to drink some water, then started to eat the roll slowly, savoring each bite, though she was half worried that they’d somehow get interrupted. She was quiet for a few minutes, then finally spoke up softly.
“It’s really good. Is the food here always this good?”
--
Katniss was glad to see that Cassie took her advice. She wouldn’t have cared if the girl had torn into everything anyway, and risked getting sick - sometimes hunger just took over, and common sense and willpower could do nothing to stop it - but she was going to feel much better if she managed to keep her food down.
“It’s been like this since I got here,” she agreed. “Well, it’s actually gotten a little better. When new people work back there and throw in their own recipes. Like the bread, and the pie.”
--
Cassie nodded her understanding absently, then returned her attention to the food. Despite the fact that she had slowed down, she still finished her stew and both rolls quicker than Katniss, and when she was finished she drank her water slowly while waiting for the other girl. She idly scanned the mess hall itself, still amazed at seeing so many people in a small area. It had been weeks since she’d seen a large group of people at once, and at only moment she wondered if the Others would show up and kill them all.
“How long have people been here?” She asked after a few more quiet minutes, looking back to Katniss once again.
--
“I got here at the end of April,” Katniss said. She realized belatedly that Cassie might not have re-oriented herself to this world’s calendar yet, and so that might not make any sense, and added quickly, “About seven months ago. There weren’t very many people here yet - not the ones who arrived like we did, anyway. The Sky People and the Grounders were here already.”
--
“Seven months,” she repeated, somewhat awed. It hadn’t even been seven months since the first wave had hit. Though she still didn’t fully understand what all was going on or how she was there, she was starting to sort of finally think that maybe these people were telling the truth, at least that this was a different place, if not a different time. Shaking her head, the redhead finished off her water. “Sky People and Grounders...what does that mean?”
--
“I know,” Katniss said, a little wryly. Most of the time, she didn’t quite believe it herself. This place often felt like a strange, extended dream. Most of it was good, though, or at least neutral. She got to hunt. She had Peeta, and Finnick and Annie were together. That made up for the strange things that happened here, like the werewolves. “The Sky People are… everyone that’s in this bunker who were here before we started arriving in pods. And the Grounders are the people who live outside of it. The Sky People are friendly to us, mostly, although I think some of them resent us. The Grounders are hostile, but right now they’re not actively trying to kill us.”
--
“And no one knows how we were put in pods, or who put us there?” That was perhaps the strangest part of all, and the scariest. Perhaps the aliens were sending them away? It was just too strange to believe, in the long run, but here she was, washed and fed and her leg bandaged, and she wasn’t sure what to make out of it.
“Why would they resent us? It isn’t our fault that we’re here.” Cassie blinked, tilting her head. “...Right now?”
--
Katniss shook her head. “I don't think so. If they do know anything about how we got here, they're not telling.”
She had to allow room for uncertainty, because she was paranoid, and also- truthfully- because she hadn't really asked. Before she answered the next question, she glanced around the room.
“I don't know. Some of them look at us funny...especially when I first got here. And some of them call us pod people like it's a really bad thing.” She paused. “The Grounders really don't appreciate any of us that came out of the sky being on their land- us, and the Sky People too, before we got here. There's a truce, but when I started going out to hunt, they warned me to be really careful around them.”
--
“Of course not,” she replied, letting out a sigh. As she watched Katniss look around, Cassie tensed a little, still paranoid herself. She wasn’t comfortable, not really.
“Pod people to me always meant people were grown and they were all the same….I guess it means something different here.” She glanced around as well, then back to the other girl. “I’ll be careful too.” She watched as Katniss ate, quiet for a long time.
“Thanks for telling me all this.”
--
Katniss paused, her glass of water lifted halfway to her mouth. This was a moment when a smile might have been in order, but the conversation had been too serious for a smile to feel genuine. Nonetheless, her neutral expression was a little warmer than usual.
“No problem,” she said. “As long as you’re careful, you’ll probably be fine. You seem like a survivor."