Lets Start With Forever [Kay]

[Cato]

Harbinger Rhodes Nineteen | Male | District Eleven

It's hard to live right now knowing I'm the reason two young children have died, but I have to keep going on. For them. For Kirito. For Kate. For district eleven, yet it's harder than anyone realizes. I want to be there for them, but I don't know how. How can I tell Kirito it'll be alright when I know for fact it'll never be alright? His reality is my worst nightmare. I fear for my family knowing I have some brothers still in the reaping. I don't know what I would do if one of them ended up in the games traveling my journey, Crusader's journey. I was a worthless mentor for Iain and Carrita, and I don't want it to happen again, but I know if President Snow has his way district eleven will never see another victor.

Yet in the darkest hours I have a friend who walks by my side. Navya is the love of my life, and I need her now more than I ever had. She helps me when I feel broken. All I have to do is wrap my arms around her, and all my pain goes away. She helps me heal from the ghosts lingering in front of me, and the ones that follow behind me. Scars run deeper than the visible scars running across my body. I should be happy I'm alive, but the happiest I feel is when Navya is standing beside me. I'll never forget the day the train crashed and fuzzy critters stood in front of us. Together we helped place them in their rightful place, but I happened to find a stray that never made it back on the train.

Angel. She's my guardian angel, and I love her with all my heart, and this same love I have for my precious kitty is the same love I share for Navya. I wish I could spend all my life with her because I can't live without her. Everywhere I go I see her face, and when I'm around her I feel all warm and fuzzy. And it's been two years since I met her, and it was the greatest moment in my entire life. Which is why I've asked her to come join me today. I want to go back to where we met.

My hand protects the ring in my pocket. I bought it in the Capitol, and I hope Navya enjoys it as much as I do, and I've placed my best outfit on today. I didn't want to wear anything I bought from the Capitol because it reminds me too much of the games, and the horrible fate of tributes. I may have survived, but I never won the games - the pain lingers forever, and knowing that as long as I live the pain will always be there. Every single year I'm forced to pay the ultimate price, but today is the day my life changed forever. I just hope Navya is willing because I know I won't be able to survive without her.

Victor of the 71st Hunger Games

[googlefont="Nothing You Could Do:400"]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

NAVYA SACHDEVA

She could never have imagined that a few weeks could be so hard, before the Seventy First Games. Now, it seemed they were doomed to suffer every summer, to pay for a sin they had not committed. What sort of vengeful god punished the innocent? Her family contemplated that question nightly in their prayers. They begged forgiveness, asked for grace for the Miristiomas, offered their lives in recompense. Navya had never felt the silence after her prayers so deeply.

Harbinger's return to Eleven is a balm, to Navya and her family. Even though they do not see him often, simply knowing he is nearby is enough for her mother to start humming again, for her sisters to return to gossiping. She makes the mistake of telling them that Harbinger asked to meet near the train tracks. They curl, braid, and pin her hair, twittering the morning away. He's going to ask you to move in, Kiara says, her fingers knit deeply into Navya's hair. It's just a date. He hasn't been back long enough to ask her anything, Sai says, right before Veer chased her out of the room.

The sun is bright and full when Navya leaves the orchard, her hair carefully coiffed, her cat dodging her foot steps. He's grown long and sleek since he rescued him. Her father says he earns his keep by hunting the mice that would eat their picked apricots. Navya knows, though, that she would never give him up because in the long weeks that Harbinger is gone, he sleeps curled around her head.

The walk to the tracks is long but pleasant. They wind through orchards and then through forest, finally into a field, where she plucked the then-kitten from the tall grass. He disappears into it, hunting, or maybe sensing this is the place of his discovery. Navya smiles even before she sees Harbinger's lean form in the distance. As soon as she does, her heart crawls into her throat. She walks a little faster, sandals slapping against the dirt.

She stops just short of him, hand reaching for his. She does her best not to launch herself at him at every meeting, but it is difficult to resist the impulse. To look at him is to have her heart broken and remade into something stronger. Navya laces her fingers through his and draws in a deep breath. "It's a beautiful day."

[Cato]

Harbinger Rhodes Nineteen | Male | District Eleven

A huge smile spreads across my face the moment I see her. Everything about her is perfect, and I don't want to miss a moment without her because she's my world. When I'm around her, all the pain of the world seems to vanish. Navya has been there for me so many times. The thoughts of being a failure disappear the moment her hands interlock with mine. My heart pounds fast inside my chest, and for a moment I'm stuck on what I planned on doing. It's here where we met. It's here where I found a friend and someone I care about. I care about her so much more than I could ever care about myself.

I've done many things I regret, but loving Navya is one thing I'll always cherish. I'm a firm believer everything happens for a reason. None of this would've happened had I died in the arena. Something more has to be waiting for me. Something to mend the broken strings lingering inside my body. "It's a very beautiful day." The ring feels heavy in the palm of my hand as I can't help the smile spreading further across my face. "Yes, it's a very beautiful day."

I take a deep breath before looking around remembering all the furry critters scattered from the train. It was the day that started the first chapter of the two of us being together, and this will start the second chapter because I want to spend my entire life with her. Forever seems like a while, but with a beautiful woman standing by my side, I'll take the journey through eternity. "Navya, I love you with all my heart, my soul, my strength. You're my everything. You make me feel like I'm a human again. Like I belong. Without you, I feel my demons are about to consume me. I honestly can't imagine my life without you. I don't want to spend a second without you by my side. You mean the world to me."

Removing the ring from my pocket, I lower myself down onto my good knee allowing my prosthetic to hold me upright. I keep the palm of my hand closed, and I slowly look into her eyes before opening my hand showing the ring I have for her. "Navya Sachdeva, will you marry me?"

Victor of the 71st Hunger Games

[googlefont="Nothing You Could Do:400"]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

NAVYA SACHDEVA

"He's going to ask you to move in with him," her sister's words rattle around her head. Before, it was easy to dismiss such a musing. Now, in the field, with Harbinger looking at her just so, she wonders. Adrenaline floods her, from her neck to her stomach. She squeezes his hand to steady herself against the prickling that blurs the edges of her vision.

She waits, until the words come tumbling out of him. She wants to catch every one, the nouns and the verbs, the memories and promises. She is swept away by him, swept up in the swelling tide of their love. She's ready to say yes - to become the caretaker of the Rhodes estate. The word is already on her lips when he drops on his good knee and produces a ring.

"Navya Sachdeva, will you marry me?"

An audible gasp steals the breath from her lungs and one hand flies to her sternum. Her fingers creep up inch by inch until she covers her mouth, in a very belated attempt to mask the shock. She feels at once too young and too old. This is a secret moment, a wish and a dream she has shared with no one - not Kirito (poor, lost Kirito), not her sisters, not even her father.

She sinks to her knees, the earth cushioning her descent. She lifts both hands to either side of his face, cradling the scruff. She does her best not to be distracted by the ring in his hand, because she has something to ask him, too.

"Are you sure? What I mean is: are you sure you want to marry me, now? I know we will be wed. I've seen in my dreams since the day I first met you, right here. Knowing that it will happen is no great help when I wonder about when it should happen. I don't want you to marry me because you are afraid or concerned. And I don't want to marry you because I'm terrified you'll go to the Capitol and never come back."

She swallows against a tide of tears, having woken the latent fear in her belly. "I want to marry you because I am desperately in love with you, and that should be celebrated, above everything else."

Now she's afraid of more than President Snow snatching him from his slumber in a tower. She's afraid that he'll agree, that he'll see how young they are, how fragile love is, how easily torn asunder they could be. Love is too often the catalyst to tragedy in Panem. Her dark eyes, full of tears, search his as she leans close. "If you are absolutely sure of me, Harbinger Rhodes, then you know I will celebrate with you today and every day to come."

[Cato]

Harbinger Rhodes Nineteen | Male | District Eleven

I had expected, hoped, Navya would take the offer, but I'm only met with disappointment and heartache. It takes all I have to not fold my hand up and walk away from her. Love is such an amazing emotion I haven't felt in so long, and I'm offering her my life, yet it seems she doesn't want to take it. Tears sit in the corner of my eyes, and I blink them away as she sinks to her knees. How could she do this to me? Before I can say anything she's spewing words at me, and I feel myself breaking more and more. "Are you sure?" Navya, if I wasn't sure I wouldn't have asked you. I want to spend all eternity with you. Forever. My entire life I want to devote to you. But I can't speak because interrupting someone is rude especially the one person I love more than anything in the world. I listen silently as she talks, and I keep wondering where I've gone wrong. What I've done that she's questioning me, but I understand where she's coming from. The Capitol has destroyed my life. They've taken away my brother. They forced me to fight in the hunger games. They forced me to kill, but none of that pain compares to the possibility of losing Navya forever. I'm not afraid of anything right now because she means the world to me, and I can't imagine my life without her.

"I want to marry you because I am desperately in love with you, and that should be celebrated above everything else." Silence fills the air around me, and I can't move or think or anything except keep my eyes locked on her praying this isn't leading to what I feel it's leading to because I can't take anymore heartache. I can't spend another night not knowing my future. And I know young marriages don't last long, and I know the price, but I won't let it hold me back because I know what I want; I want her. "If you are absolutely sure of me, Harbinger Rhodes, then you know I will celebrate with you today and every day to come." My heart hammers against the inside of my chest, and I'm still unsure of what to do or say or anything, but she didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either. Navya left me with a question. One I already know the answer to.

"Navya, it doesn't have to be today, or tomorrow, or next week, or this year, or even within the next couple years. It doesn't have to happen soon; it can wait until the right time. I just know I want to marry you. I want to stay by your side forever. I'm absolutely sure this is what I want. Not because I'm afraid, but because I want to share my love with you for the rest of eternity." My voice cracks as the words flow off my tongue, and I can feel myself slowly starting to fall apart. I know it's hard, and I know it's a huge commitment, but I'm willing to take it. I'm willing to stay with her through thick and thin. I will love her forever. I close my eyes allowing myself to take a breath trying to calm my shaking nerves before looking into her eyes once more. "So, Navya Sachdeva, will you marry me?"

Victor of the 71st Hunger Games

[googlefont="Nothing You Could Do:400"]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

NAVYA SACHDEVA

"So, Navya Sachdeva, will you marry me?"

Navya tilts her head, leaning forward until she's an inch from him. "Yes," she whispers, her voice joining the warm breeze and the swaying grasses of their home. And then she's kissing him, sealing herself to him. She presses forward. Somehow he ends up sitting on the ground, and she crawls into his lap. It's only then that she pauses to take a breath.

Navya lifts her left hand extending it out and waggling her fingers. When the ring is in place, she sighs. For a moment, she simply twists her hand, this way and that, letting the sun warm the gold. "It's really beautiful. And I've never seen anything like it." The chips of gemstones glitter before she drops her hand to grip his. For a time, as the day stretches into afternoon, they are quiet, bound by their hands and the promises they've made. It's only when the breeze picks up that Navya blinks, breaking the easy gazing they'd fallen into.

She stands, reaching for him even as she does so. "I want eternity to start right now."

They walk, hand in hand, back to the District Center. As they step out from the woods into the populated area, Navya turns the ring inward, so that it fits between their palms. She doesn't say anything - she doesn't have to - as Harbinger escorts her home.

end.