Happy Birthday to You...

[stillplaying]

Who: The Everdeen sisters and whoever knows them (plus dates, if applicable)
What: Belated birthday party for Prim.
When: Starting Saturday evening (6/8), around 5 PM.
Where: House 43
Summary: Thanks to the spirit possessions, Katniss cancelled the original party she had planned. Time for Surprise Party #2!
Rating: PG/PG-13 if any fights break out?

She had gotten up early to make certain everything was perfect. Double checked that all the bedroom locks worked, moved all of the valuables out of the living area and into Sharpe's bedroom. And then she cleaned the house more thoroughly than she had in a long, long time.

Hours later, with Aang's help, everything seemed perfect. The inside of the house was decorated with crepe streamers. Though there was an emphasis on blue, she made certain to alternate with other colors: whites and greens and purples and reds. Balloons floated along the ceiling, interspersed among strings of twinkling lights. A huge banner reading "Happy Birthday Primrose!" hung across the space between living room and kitchen.

Food covered every available surface, bowls and plates and bowls of punch and other drinks resting on top of blue paper table cloths. Peppermints and chocolates and other sweets covered the dining room table, with a two-tiered cake in the center. It had been pushed against one of the walls to make space for dancing and talking. In the kitchen, various dinners - stews and roasted meats and an assortment of vegetables and starches - covered the counters. Snack type foods were scattered both inside and out, a mix of cheeses and crackers, vegetables and fruits.

Extra chairs surrounded a table in the backyard, which had been equally decorated. Balloons were tied to chairs and a mixture of streamers and lights hung over any tree branches that crossed into the yard. In one corner, a goat stood tied up to a poll with a pink bow around her neck. Space had been provided for a D.J. table if Teddy or Sabriel grew tired of playing.

Everything seemed perfect. She only hoped that Prim would love it, too.

Comments

[greenjacketed]

"I was -- ah -- freeing one of her charges, if you will. Why? What did you do?"

[antivanleather]

"Killed the a man that had been in hiding in their care. They were most upset about that."

[greenjacketed]

"...I might see how that'd piss'em off, aye."

[antivanleather]

"Just a little. I think the rest was more about the fact that I was half dressed at the time. That seems to happen to me quite a bit, through no fault of my own."

[greenjacketed]

"...I believe I will refrain from asking after the particulars."

[antivanleather]

"You are a wiser man than most."

[greenjacketed]

His mouth quirked. "Nah, mate. Just a humble soldier."

[antivanleather]

"I've yet to meet a soldier of any sort that was truly humble. Everyone has their point of pride." He replied with a flourish of a slice, sending a bit of apple directly into the sink without looking.

[greenjacketed]

"And I pride myself on bein' humble."

[antivanleather]

"Are all the men in Katniss' life so very contrary, or are we the lucky few?"

[greenjacketed]

His face darkened. Because, on the subject of the men in Katniss's life: "Oi. Zevran. Has she mentioned this Sokka lad to you, at all?"

Sharpe might barely know the man, but his recent distrust of the smithy boy made him interested in finding an ally or two.

[antivanleather]

"She has. He seems to please her well enough with his company." Little to no inflection on 'please' due to the fact that this man, while not Ferelden, seems enough like them in his sensibilities. That and it is Katniss. Some things one simply does not say.

[greenjacketed]

"...I don't like him," he grumbled. "And I don't much like that he's here, tonight."

Indeed, Sharpe had once warned the lad not to step foot in the house.

[antivanleather]

"..." For this Zevran set aside the knife and the fruit to turn and give Sharpe his full consideration. Tone and intent was difficult to read through that accent on occasion.

"Would this be the usual protective intuition you are experiencing, as is your right, or is there something specific you find displeasing in him?" He could, and normally would, tease. But this was Katniss. This was all but blood. That alone made it serious indeed.

[greenjacketed]

"He were a good lad, at first. Good to supply me with ammunition. Good to chat with, like? And I told her she ought to find someone, after..." A shrug. It wasn't his to say, and he half-presumed Zevran already knew.

"Somethin' he said, though. 'Bout here. Christ -- I don't even know. I've heard men in the ranks say worse."

But not about Katniss.

[antivanleather]

"Mm. It was a something I suggested as well." It wouldn't heal the loss of Peeta, but it had made her happy enough. That had been good for her in his mind.

"I grew up in the brothels of Antiva, Sharpe. I have heard many an unpleasant and unsavory thing in my time. What is it he said?"

[greenjacketed]

Sharpe showed no surprise at the confession. In fact, upon hearing that he'd been raised in brothels, he as good as relaxed. After all, he too had seen a similar upbringing.

"...That necklace he gave her." The one of silver regimental buttons. Sharpe's buttons, though that was a secret known only to Sokka and himself, as no on else had any reason to recognize the trinkets. "He says it got him quite a...bargain. His very word."

The soldier was filled with a kind of cold dislike -- not impassioned, but precise. Regulation disgust to go with his regulation jacket and his regulation rifle. "I'm all for a woman taking what she's due--" meaning, of course, that he had no qualms at all with certain friendly exchanges "--but not when she don't know that's what's bloody happening."

[antivanleather]

"..." Compared to some things he had heard in his life, some things he had been told? It was mild. Fairly mild indeed. All innuendo and insinuation and were it any other woman, he might have laughed. But this was no other woman.

This was Katniss, and the hand holding the slim knife began to spin in in a thoughtful, lazy pattern. He knew the relationship was to be a casual one. A comfortable one. No love but desire and camaraderie. Friendship. And he knew that there were those that could not respect their partners in such a relationship.

Point A went to B in his mind and he took up the apple once again, voice low and cold. "And you say he is here." More of a statement than a question.

He had simply hoped Katniss might be spared such callous treatment.

[greenjacketed]

Sharpe watched the knife -- his own kind of thoughtful as he considered his part in this tangle. Had he pushed the girl to quickly into someone's arms? He'd told her that it got easier to just...enjoy and like whoever you chose to spend your time with. It hadn't been about sex, strictly. Just life and time and happiness. He'd told her how, in his own way, he'd loved every woman he'd ever been with. And he'd approved of Sokka, at first. But for all Sharpe's and Katniss's talk of fun and low-commitment, he feared she was still so tender after losing Peeta.

He feared that to be so ill-used might hurt her, even if she didn't dare admit it. He feared it because he knew he, too, would be hurt by such a revelation.

"Aye. When the moment's right, I plan on having words with him."

[antivanleather]

"Why stop at words?" He was, is, and always would be an elf of a particular set of skills that had been called into use more often than he might have thought in the past month. While he was fairly certain Katniss would be displeased should Sokka end up dead a bit of this, that, or the other to leave the man ill would not be at all difficult to manage.

"It is one thing for a man and a woman to agree to an easy comfortable relationship. It is something else entirely to imply the other a whore for it. Men are killed for less in Antiva. Usually by the woman's brothers or fathers or a Crow they have hired to handle it for them. Katniss has no brother or father here- but she does have her very own Crow."

[greenjacketed]

He tried not to get his back up too high at the no brother or father because -- of course -- how could this elf know Sharpe's inner thoughts on the matter? He barely said them aloud to the girl herself.

The girl herself.

"Katniss. I couldn't....if she ever found out. Christ, man, she'd blame herself for gettin' involved and not the murderer for dropping his hand."

[antivanleather]

"I did not mean to imply we should kill him- not yet, at least. A little poison to make him ill and uncomfortable for being an ass, most certainly." After this week he was more than a little reluctant to jump straight to murder. It wasn't the last resort it could usually be in this place; employing it would hurt more than help.

"I've several such powers on my person right now. All it would take is a bite."

[greenjacketed]

"...Poison is for spies."

And, perhaps, women. But he didn't say so aloud.

[antivanleather]

"Poison is subtle. There would be few that would know what it was and who might have been able to do it."

[greenjacketed]

"What's the point, eh? If he doesn't know..."

Here was a man not often ashamed of his violence nor his vengeance.