Mellark-Everdeen Bakery

Haymitch made no promises, but fastened the bracelet around Finnick’s wrist with the assurance that “do everything you can to protect my girl, and I’ll do the same for yours.”

Though she felt tainted and ruined in many ways, her purity was the one thing that she held to and trusted Finnick with when they married. Finnick felt used by the Capitol in the way that he would never have this purity to give to her after the years of ‘servitude’. Annie was the first one who made him feel like more than a slab of meat to be bought and sold.

Haymitch only turned to alcohol to escape the nightmares when Chaff provided it as an escape for his nightmares.

They were drinking to the death of Rue, the tribute he had mentored for District 11 that year, and Chaff was not ashamed to allow his fellow tribute, victor, mentor and friend see the tears that he shed for the girl. When Haymitch asked why he felt more strongly for her than any other victor, he said that Haymitch would never understand what it was like to convince a twelve-year-old girl to feel confident when walking into her death, because Katniss had prevented that. He felt more respect for Katniss after Chaff’s reaction to Rue’s death, and wondered whether Prim’s death would have hit him the same way had Katniss not volunteered.

Haymitch was eleven years old when it happened, a year before his first reaping. His father had died on the very day he had convinced his son that working in the mines wasn’t as bad as some people believed it to be. Haymitch swore from that day, the day when he had held his younger brother back as his mother wept at the side of the mines, that he would never set foot in the mine, even if he had to run away when he turned eighteen. He swore he would rather be Reaped than work in the mines. On the day he was Reaped, he took it all back.

What Panem used to be was but a spec on a larger map, and he was curious about the tales his father told, the civilisations, the dead languages, the wars, the trades, even the politics. Whether these stories rang true with what little was in the history books or whether it was made up to send him off to sleep at night, Gale didn’t care. Until his father died, he always dreamed that one day, when he finished school, he wouldn’t go to the mines but instead would sail across the sea with his father to discover if any of these lands still existed.

What she hated more, however, was the fact that when she was gradually discovering the innocence that could be found in love, she was having to compete with an animal. And not just any animal. Buttercup. Damned cat. Should have drowned it years ago.

In fact, she wasn’t fond of bugs in general, but unfortunately their small home in the Seam was full of the crawling creatures. She would refuse to enter if there was one she could see, which meant that Katniss was constantly removing them from her site. Prim insisted that she squish them, but Katniss knew that she didn’t mean it - Prim loved animals too much not to include even the most “horrible” bugs in her clasp, so allowed them to instead wander free from the window ledge.