Despite all that had happened, despite all they had been through as a court and as a couple, Katniss knows that Metaphor will always be with her. She knows that she will always feel his presence, even when he is not close. She will always smell him in the home they had made together. She will always desire what he desires. It is love that brought the two of them together and it would be love that would see them through anything.
Even if she was not confident in her skills as mother or a lover, she cannot help but trust that Metaphor would be right by her side, walking this road with her. He would not leave her, he would not forsake her. He would be there with her through thick and thin. He would guide her down this new path, walking with her hand and hand, leading her towards redemption.
His words seemed to ground her, to make her feel alive in this moment. She needs to feel his touch so closely, to tell her that it will all be okay. “I trust you.” She might not feel completely ready, but she had to trust that Metaphor would not leave her. She had to trust that what she felt towards him was real and that their love made her ready. It made her able to take on the world and the scary things that dwelled within it. With him, anything was possible.
She can feel the way his lips travel over her face, her neck, her back. She can feel the twitch of her skin beneath his touch and his hot breath. She can even feel the heat from the fire, setting her heart ablaze for him. And when he tells her that she is his world, she cannot help the smile that creeps onto her lips, the flutter of her hear as it beats a little faster, or the butterflies that seem to dance in her stomach. “As you are mine.” And it was in this moment that she gave herself completely to him, opening up her heart, her soul, her mind, and her body for him. And for the first time in a long time, she does not regret any of it.
[time passes]
As she lay curled up next to her lover alongside the fire, she leans her weight against him. Her body is relaxed, her mind clear. For the first time in a long time, she is utterly content. The only thing that worries her is the fact that she does not feel what she had with her first pregnancy. She does not feel the sudden swelling of her abdomen, the sudden kicking of the foal growing within her. She does not let him know that she is worried that their union has not taken, that despite all that she had said to him, she could not give him the gift of fatherhood. It does not occur to her that perhaps her first pregnancy had been a fluke, nothing short of magic and that this pregnancy might take a more natural course. She tries not to let it bother her, she only leans into him for comfort. “Come, let’s go home.” Even in the stillness of this moment, Katniss knows that she cannot stay here forever. She knows that she must return home to her court, to Isra, to Finnick. While she might want to stay in this moment forever and relive it over and over again, she knows that she must go back to reality. At least she will still have her lover with her along the journey.
@Metaphor
