Placing the last bone in to the bag and look at the bare tree sighing. It looks so bare and almost more morbid without the skulls and other animal bones hanging on it. I look at the bag and tie it shut heaving the bones on my shoulders to be carried to the river. I hum softly as I walk to the river, diligent in my work on the animal bones. I need to clean them of dirt so that they will gleam and shine like pearls as they are hung back on the tree.

Sitting down on the rocks by the river, I lay my bag down and pick up a wolf skull, running my fingers down her nose. I carefully dunk her into the river and start scrubbing grime away with a terry cloth. The dusty, grimey growth that had started to build up starts to fall away, the shining white of the skull coming up clean from the water. I smile at it and set it next to me on a rock to dry in the sun. Grabbing a worn deer femur, I start the process over again.

I enjoy the soothing sound of the river, the flutter of the birds in the trees above me. I run my fingers through the water, sighing at the cool current that flows through my fingers. Footsteps in the stones above me tell me everything I need to know before I even see the person behind me in the reflection of the water.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. "Surely your father has better things for you to do than follow me around in a forest sworn to be full of unimaginable danger?" Peeta chuckles and bends over to look at me. 

"Do I need an excuse to come visit my friend, especially knowing that someone over a tangle of Primroses might wish you harm," He says and I look at him. 

"I don't want you getting in trouble for sneaking off," I say and he chuckles. 

"Oh, my naive little Fireflower, I'm always in trouble with mother, so it doesn't matter," Peeta says, sitting down beside me. "Besides, you are much more interesting than anything in town to gawk at, so I might as well come and be surrounded by the sounds of the spirits," I pull up a fox skull from the water and he tilts his head. "Of which you seem to surround yourself with."

"I respect the spirits of the lives I take, Peeta," I say simply, setting the fox next to the others and grab a new bone. "It is tradition, in my father's line, because one of my great great something grandmothers was once a Dinian who left Artemis' hunt. After her blood was forged with that of the Hestians, we began the tradition of forging the waste parts of the animal in a type of funeral pyre. We make death swift and painless, and if we took the animal's last breath, we are able to use the power of hearth fires to release the animals to the wind, their spirits free of service. After the fire, what remains, we take and hang on a skeleton tree to bleach and in return, Artemis protects the young maidens of the family."

"Why did you take them down?" Peeta asks and I hold out a bone, showing the growth of moss and debris had stained it.

"As a sign of respect, I clean them so they might not become trapped," I say. "I give them a place to hold onto, but I don't want to trap them." Peeta smiles and looks at the bag. 

"Do you mind?" He asks.

"Not at all," I say. He reaches in and pulls the young buck's skull from my bag. "That, is an interesting choice."

"What do you mean?" Peeta asks and I carefully take the skull from him. 

"Why did you pick this one?" I ask, a thumb tracing the groves of his teeth. 

"It was the first one I came to," Peeta says, "Why?"

"This is the deer that you saved from rotting in the sweltering Meat Market," I say. Running my hands up the length of the horns, I chuckle and hand him back.  "He was one of the first I removed from the tree which means he should have been at the bottom of the bag. He clearly thanks you for being involved in making sure he did not die for nothing." Peeta looks at me a moment and then back at the deer.

"Do you see them?" He asks.

"Are you suggesting this is all centaur dung?" I ask as I lean back over the river to clean the next bone.

"No," He says. "Of course not. I mean, I can always see the glowing of the life inside a long dormant plant, like those pine trees the other day. I could see the green glow of life inside them despite the outside of it looking so rough and neglected. I was wondering if you saw the animals attached to their vessels." I shake my head.

"Only Dinians can make that sort of connection with their prey," I say softly. "I only see them when their spirit is released. I feel them sometimes, so I guess I know they are here. It makes it a lot more real." 

"Which means you feel the compulsion to clean and respect them," he says.  I nod, setting my bones aside and reaching for another as Peeta dunks the skull into the water. "Makes sense, I mean there are all these ceremonies that the Demets do to thank Demeter for the harvest."

"So, I'm not crazy?" I ask and he shakes his head.

"Of course not," He says. "Do you mind if I help with it?" I look at him and shake my head before turning back to my work.

"Not at all," I say. "I appreciate the help, actually." We work quietly and efficiently, the only words being said between us is the approval or disapproval of Peeta's work. Before I would know it, we are done and the bones lay around us, drying in the sun.

"Do you want help putting them back?" Peeta asks. I glance at him, finding myself smiling. 

"If you want, I suppose," I say. "It usually takes a while for me to climb up and down to put them up." I carefully place the bones back into my bag, placing the them together carefully so the more fragile of my collection towards the top of the bag so they don't become smashed as I carry them the short journey up the hill. Peeta looks as though he was about to offer taking them. "I'm a woman, not an invalid." 

"I didn't say a thing, Katniss," he says. Glancing up the hill, he chuckles as he notices the bare tree, stripped of even it's bark.

"What?" I ask. "Not impressed with my choice of location?" He shakes his head.

"No," Peeta says, "It's just, amusing, that the only broken tree I've seen in your part of the forest is this one that you still find use for in ways other than burning it to a stump of ashes." He looks at it and then back at me. "Wait a second, you climb this tree, that is no longer structurally sound?" 

"Yeah, why?" I ask. 

"So you aren't the least bit concerned about a branch snapping and you falling?" Peeta says, shaking his head. "How on earth did I become friends with such a reckless person?"

"No idea," I say quietly and he walks to my side.

"Well it's a good thing you are friends and that I happen to know a thing or two about the control of climbing ivy," He says. The ground cracks and a couple vines start climbing up the tree. "Just tell me  where you want things and I'll get them up for you." I look at him to object and he holds up a finger. "You aren't going to risk your life with me standing right here." I sigh and start placing the bones on the vines and pointing where they should go. It is more tedious than I am used to being, but it does feel good to know that someone else since my father respects the belief of the bone tree. I look at it, now adorned with the fresh green vines of the ivy as well as the shining white bone. 

"It's beautiful, Peeta," I whisper, reaching forward and touching some of the bones with a gentle hand. "No one has ever understood, no one has ever seen the point in the meticulousness of this. My mother, my sister, they find it morbid and a stack of clutter." He walks over to me and covers my hand with his.

"It is important to you, makes you feel safe and like you are fulfilling something," He says. "That is all that matters, Katniss." I look at him and lean against him. 

"Thank you," I say.

"It isn't a big deal, Katniss," He says softly, I look at him, leaning over so my face is inches from his. 

"It is to me," I whisper.

"Katniss," he says, his voice soft and barely audible in my ears, "Not like this.  Not just because I did something for you." I pull away a little and sigh, kissing his cheek.

"You boy, are a special one when it comes to trying to woo a lady," I say and he chuckles.

"Because you've said it before and I believe it too," He says, "You need to know who you are before any romance starts up in your life." I look down and sigh.

"What if this is all part of it?" I ask. "That your feelings for me are just another part of the trail to finding out who I am?" Peeta shakes his head, looking at me. 

"Katniss, I may love you more than anything you've ever known," He says. "But I know you don't love me back. Not that way, at least." I nod and step away from him a little. I shake my head and grip my fingers in my hair, groaning.

"What is wrong with me?" I groan out. "What kind of person does this sort of crap?" 

"You're trying to force things, Katniss," He says. "You're trying to rush it and prove Gale wrong. That you don't need him. And yeah, you don't. But you shouldn't need me either." I nod, folding my arms over myself. 

"I know, but it's hard, Peeta," I say. "The confusion, the worry that I've made a mistake, it feels like Atlas is standing on my shoulders. " He nods, reaching for my hand.

"I know," He says softly. "And I'm here for you. But only as your friend. As a lover, we will just have to see whether that is the kind of path your life takes you down."