𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘴 // thg

locket - everlark

Katniss' POV

The intricate gold detailing of the mockingjay on the pendant never ceased to take my breath away, even with the small specks of dried blood that adorned its surface. It wasn't the design, however, that drew me in to the piece of jewelry. It was the three photos on the inside that truly made my heart stop.

My mother, as broken and withered as ever, inhabited the left frame. The middle frame contained a photo of Gale, who I'd lost touch with after Coin's execution. The right frame, my favorite one, held an image of Prim, one of the most recent pictures I had of her before she died.

Peeta had gifted me the locket in the Quell, when he told me that I had people who needed and cared for me in Twelve, and that I was the only person he had left that he loved. He wanted me to make it out of that arena, because he believed that living without me was far worse than dying.

I was tempted to turn away the locket, since I was adamant that he needed to be the one to make it out. I almost destroyed it when I got to Thirteen, because it reminded me of him, and how we were no longer together. When he made it back, a homicidal maniac without a trace of who he once was, I developed a love-hate relationship with the pendant. I cherished it because it was one of the last things I had left of him, but I also resented it because I knew I'd never truly get him back.

Once the rebellion ended, and Prim died and my mother went off to work in some Capitol hospital and Gale and I cut ties with each other, I wanted to replace Gale's picture with one of Finnick. Once I thought about it, though, I decided not to. I wanted it the exact way Peeta had given it to me.

Now, I lay on the couch of Peeta and I's little cottage with my head in his lap. I fiddled with the locket as it hung around my neck, and Peeta stared down at me with a smile and a look of adoration in his eyes.

He wasn't the same man he was before the Games, but so much better. His imperfections made him that much more beautiful to me, and I couldn't imagine him any other way.