She makes her first kill at ten years old. She doesn't know what she's doing- not really. Her grandfather brings her into a big round room full of workers in white busying away like bees over their panels. He points to a hologram screen covered in pictures of strange looking animals. Mutts, he calls them, made to bring entertainment to all the people of the Capitol.

Their pictures are small but the mutts will be much larger as she understands it. Some look like dogs, others like cats, others still like horses and others like birds and others fish. She picks one of the birds with razors on their wings that shine prettily. She thinks they'll be beautiful in the tropical environment set in the arena where the sun will glint and glow from their metal feathers.

It's not her first time seeing mutts. She has a mutt for a pet, a simpler one than all her friends, but a pet indeed. It's a cat, black like her hair with silvery eyes like hers. She'd wanted it to be buttery yellow – fat and fluffy like cats in picture books. Instead the cat is slim and agile and intelligent, a deadly creature in a small manageable form, like she is and one day will be still. It has wings on its back that don't fly, black with white tips.

She names her mutt Griffin from one of her fairy tale books, because her grandfather scoffs that Mockingjay is too long a name. The frown on his lips when he thinks she's not looking makes her think there are other reasons. Later in life she'll look up Mockingjays and learn they're a hybrid that shouldn't exist; a defiance of the Capitol's well planned order.

These mutts are not her feline companion.

The bird mutts are fast; they swoop down and kill a tribute by cutting his throat open. The blood pours out on the sand and her grandfather smiles whilst patting her on the shoulder fondly even as she fights the urge to scream out in shock. It's the first time she learns the true meaning cause and effect. It's the first time she learns that she can kill a living human being with only a word or a point of her finger. She's a killer already and she can barely grasp the concept of death.

The coming years will find she receives the best rewards when she does something cunning or brutal, even better when it's both. The conditioning will make her as deadly as one of the mutt birds whose shadows dance above the pools of blood as their wings shine in the sunlight just as she predicted.

Her eyes stay trained on the birds, resisting looking anymore at the dead boy whose family is sobbing in ten because he almost had a chance to return to them. He was in the final ten. His district will one day rebel with the planned irony a fiery point of rage in their hearts that the Capitol citizens had giggled and cheered over when one of them pointed out what a fantastic symbol of the games it was for a ten to die in tenth place.

She saves her first life at ten years old. She doesn't know what she's doing then either – setting one small bit of the stage for the future that will destroy everything she knows. Her grandfather shows her the remaining tributes – she knows them all from watching the games. He tells her to pick her very favorite out of them all.

There's a girl among them, one from twelve who could have won. The twelve girl looks like her and she almost picks her. But there's a boy from four with blonde hair and sea-green eyes – though she prefers blue – who is so beautiful and deadly. He sets snares with nets, but his way of killing his opponents is crude and unimpressive. He stabs them with spears, but he deserves a better weapon to wield with a smile that pretty. Tt makes all the girls in her classes sigh with puppy love crushes as they wear colors matching his eyes in support of him.

"Him," She says, pointing to him on the screen.

Her grandfather nods, "He is the favorite for this year… none more imaginative catch your eye?"

She frowns at him, wondering why he doesn't see what she sees. She remembers a picture from one of her books of a prince of the sea who defended his kingdom with a mighty trident and won himself a beautiful princess to match his own handsomeness. The boy from four looks like a prince to her, so she shakes her head at her grandfather and says, "He needs a trident. Then he will be a victor." Then he will be a prince, she thinks.

That sparks something bright in her grandfather's eyes. "I do believe you're right, my dear. What a wonderful idea."

A few hours later she's watching her television and the boy from four receives a trident fit not for a prince of the sea, but for a king. He's glorious to watch, wielding it like a hero from a story as he kills all who stand in his way. In the end it comes down to him and the girl from twelve.

The girl knows how to avoid his snares after watching him for days. She's almost tempted to tell her grandfather she's changed her mind. This girl from twelve deserves to win, deserves to go home to her family. The girl from twelve had yet to kill anyone. She watches as the girl raises her bow, arrows fully stocked, aim perfect. She watches with baited breath because the sea prince has no idea he's about to die.

The girl from twelve never fires. Her bow lowers with a look on her face the capital raised girl watching can't quite understand yet. Then the girl takes five steps forward and falls into a trap that she knows the girl knows was there after having avoided it only minutes ago. The sea prince turns fast on heel at the sound of his prey being caught unexpectedly and throws his trident the moment he sees the girl caught in his net. The net and girl and trident fall all at once as the sea prince comes to stand over the fallen girl from twelve.

The camera focuses on their faces. Her screen is split in half, viewing both at once. She knows from experience that other people don't get to see both angles. But she has access to all angles and all parts of the arena except the few times something is cut off or restricted from her viewing for what her grandfather says will have to wait till she's older. As if there's anything worse than gruesome death that she's not allowed seeing yet.

When the recap plays later she knows for sure that no one she'll talk about the games to sees the same thing she does, because it's cut off from a normal viewers broadcast. As he stands over the coal miner's daughter, the sea prince's triumphant grin falters. The girl stares up at him peacefully and mouths a silent thank you to him with a wavering smile from the obvious pain the grey eyed girl must be in. The sea prince looks devastated, as if he's just coming to terms with all the lives he's taken and on the other side of the screen she is too. The playback of the games afterwards shows only the archer's paling face and his victorious grin.

Her screen shows pain, loss, silent goodbyes and a sobbed "I'm sorry" repeated over and over again until the canon sounds and for several minutes after. They play another version of his victory over the death from a previous tribute, she later realizes, from unused footage for the normal broadcast. When she stares into the mirror that night she wonders at how much she looks like the girl from twelve. She wonders what it would have been like to grow up in a place like the one she's seen from the reaping in twelve.

It looks cold and sad, she thinks. There's no possibility anyone can be happy there. There's no possibility there are any places like those in her story books outside of the Capitol. She thinks she lives in a wonderful place where anything is possible even as doubt lingers in her mind.

She is Katniss Snow, a child of the Capital. She shares no blood with the coal miners of Twelve.

The next days are full of celebration. Katniss gets to meet the boy from four whose life she has saved unbeknownst to him. He looks down at her with a smile that she knows is fake, because she's been taught to know a liar's expressions when she sees them. He gives a mocking bow and calls her a princess. He compliments her beautiful castle in her glorious kingdom and Katniss feels sick to her stomach knowing that he's mocking her with sweet words and smiles. They even share a dance. It's an opportunity the Capitol won't miss sighing over at how cute a sight it is to see the handsome young victor and the President's tiny beauty of a granddaughter.

He grips her hand too tight at first and Katniss silently wishes she weren't so tall so that they wouldn't be matched to dance due to the awkwardness overruling the adorableness. Or maybe that would make it worse, she considers as she thinks people might find the awkwardness even more adorable.

It's the first time she's ever danced with a victor.

Katniss is already learning that much of her life in public is a show to be put on. She figures he's learning that too when he pecks her on the cheek and thanks her for the dance despite how much she knows he hates this entire party. She can tell from the tremors in his hands he lets take over when he thinks she's the one person who won't know how much he's faking once his grip loosens in hers during their dance. He's a better actor than Katniss first assumed and she figures the girl from twelve would have been too genuine to survive this world of lies had she won.

That night Katniss curls in bed with her cat bird mutt and wishes she were a coal miner's daughter in twelve instead of a princess in a castle where people say pretty things but think of poisoning her with word and substance both. In another room in another building in the same city, Finnick Odair climbs in bed with his first suitor and wishes he were a prince of the sea where he'd never have to walk among these mortals who send children to kill and die.

She dreams of a better home, and so does he.