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what i'm thankful for

Just as she had last year, Katniss had taken on the task of planning a feast to give thanks for all the people who had come through the doors from Panem. There's a little crew of them now, slightly smaller than last year, but there's one important addition to that group - Cinna. Her heart is just a little lighter knowing that he's here and knowing that everyone in this place is happy and safe and well-fed is something to be thankful for.

She'd spent the wee hours of the morning hunting in one of the forests beyond the doors and came back with two wild turkeys. Cleaning and dressing them had taken most of the early morning hours and by late afternoon, she'd managed to have them roasted and golden brown. There's other things, too, cooked in the restaurant's kitchen and maybe while not as expertly done as Peeta would have, it's passable. Katniss has learned a few things in the past two years.

There's enough food for her invited guests and, should someone decide to crash the party, enough for a few uninvited guests. It's the way Katniss prefers it. She thinks part of the beauty of giving thanks for what they have is sharing it with anyone who happens along.

When everyone is gathered, she taps her glass lightly and makes an impromptu (and awkward) speech.

"So, I'm thankful you're all here. I'm thankful another year has passed and we're safe and sound and well-fed. Please enjoy."

With that, she slinks back into her seat.

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The invitation had come a few days earlier. Cinna is so pleased to accept, excited to see everyone in one place. When he first arrived he hadn't been sure he would ever be excited about anything ever again. To feel that thrill of anticipation now, well, it in itself is something to be thankful for. He also had felt so very alone and lost. Knowing the others are here, that's also something to be thankful for.

That excitement over the entire event is what has him poking his head in the kitchens early while Katniss is still at work. Dressed impeccably as always, he's quick to don an apron. He offers to help with this and that while also trying not to get in the way. He's learned a few things about being in a kitchen as well. But he is still no Peeta, and not even a Katniss. Everything smells lovely though and he's sure to tell Katniss so, several times in fact.

When it's time to eat and Katniss has made her toast, Cinna offers her a small, genuine smile. Having Katniss here, and every single person sitting around the table, is more than he could have hoped for, really. He's alive. They're alive. And this, he thinks, is a small makeshift family, a family he's never had before. He will of course small talk through dinner for anyone who addresses him.

After the fact, he'll tie on that apron again and help clean up and even wash dishes and such. He'll linger as long as anyone is there if just for the company and the spirit of the gathering.

ooc: catch him before, during or after the meal. I'm good with anything. ♥

During the meal, Effie had managed to shift around, talking to everyone she could - and, happily, able to alight at Cinna's side when the opportunity presented itself.

"Cinna," she said, her voice full of warmth, and happiness. "I had no idea you were here." She laid a gentle hand on his forearm, cautiously, wondering when he had come, and whether or not they were still on good terms. She didn't understand or expect anything beyond the unexpected when it came to this hotel. "It's so good to see you."

Of course Cinna is so glad to see everyone, all the faces of the people he knows, each of them brave in their own right. The familiarity is a comfort to him, more so than anything else could be right now. And of course he's on good terms with Effie. She, like most of the Capitol, is misguided, perhaps. Years of propaganda and fear will do that to an entire people. But they're good friends and Cinna feels that he knows Effie beyond the way the Games have warped most people. Cinna knows that Effie has a good heart.

So when she ends up beside him with a hand on his arm, he offers her a kind, if sad, smile. He reaches out to pull her into an embrace. He was dead. Now he is not. It's good to cherish what he's been given, this reprieve from a death sentence.

"You are a welcome sight as well, Effie." He tells her, pulling back and briefly leaving a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly before letting go. "I've missed you."

The hug was a surprise, but very welcome. She let out a somewhat awkward, but still very happy, laugh. Even working as she had at the front desk, meeting so many people, she was still only used to just Peeta and Katniss greeting her with such warmth.

"That is, of course, something someone is always pleased to hear," Effie said, with a smile. "When did you get here? I've been here for ages."

Being a double agent of the Rebellion in the Capitol hadn't always allowed Cinna to show his true emotions. In fact, he tried very hard to be an enigma of sorts, mysterious and unreadable except to Katniss and Peeta. But now he does feel free to express himself a little more than he once had. Warmth and caring comes naturally from Cinna in the most genuine of ways.

"At the beginning of the month. I... stayed in my room for a few days." He had some things to work through on his own. And while there is still much for him to contend with for himself, it helps to know he is not alone here, that he has people here that he cares for.

He gestures out at the general space of the Nexus. "What do you think of this place?"

Seeing Cinna in the kitchen is kind of a weird thing but Katniss thinks she really likes it. It just cements that he's here and it warms her heart in a way that little has since Peeta's left.

"You'd better sit down and just eat, you know. It's going to go pretty quick."

"I don't mind picking through whatever is left with you." He tells Katniss with a soft smile. Truthfully, he'd much rather be in here with Katniss and even wait to eat until Katniss is eating as well instead of going and sitting and not contributing. He probably won't even sit down until Katniss does.

"Where I was before, Peeta was there. I made bread with him a few times." He tells her. He misses Peeta too. "I'm no culinary artist but I have learned a few things if you can delegate them to me."

"All I know about baking, I learned from Peeta," Katniss admits easily enough. She is the first to admit where she has failings and the kitchen is one of those places. She'll never be completely comfortable anywhere except the woods.

"I can dress a deer or a turkey, though, and make a roast or a stew. Luckily the kitchen doesn't mind if I use the facilities as long as I clean up behind myself."

They're the same in that way then, that everything they learned about baking they learned from Peeta. And yet, Cinna, like Katniss, is still no baker. He has learned to make a few basic breakfast things. He's learned to chop vegetables very well without cutting himself. And he can boil water most easily. Things that might be simple to most. But in the Capitol, people usually don't have these skills.

"Then you know more than I do. Stew sounds delicious. Perhaps sometime we can make it together." He offers. Really, he just wants to spend time with Katniss.

"Oh, definitely. I'll have to teach you how to hunt, too." This is said with a little bit of a sly grin because while Cinna is a genius with fabric, Katniss doesn't know how he'll do on the other side of a bow. Still, she thinks anyone can be taught. Peeta was only so loud in the woods due to his prosthetic leg but Cinna doesn't have that disadvantage.

"There's a door that leads to something really similar to the woods in 12. I don't think it is Panem, there's no signs of that, but there's the same kind of plants and animals there."

The idea of hunting is both fascinating and worrisome to Cinna. He doesn't much like hurting other living things. He only hurts himself if he can help it. But at the same time, he isn't so naive not to know where food comes from. Katniss is perhaps the only person he would learn to hunt with because he knows that Katniss is not wasteful. Also, he would never turn down an opportunity to see Katniss use her bow first-hand.

"I think I'd like that." He tells her with a nod. "Learning to hunt with you and seeing this place, the woods. I was learning to use throwing knives in the place I was before." He had known some people who were most adept at such things.

"I went through one of the doors with a woman named Milady deWinter. We found a shop where I bought materials and supplies to sew with." Cinna's excited by the prospect of creating things again. He needs that outlet. He needs to keep his hands busy. "I'll be sewing by hand until I can find a sewing machine. Perhaps you could keep an eye out for one as you travel through the doors."

Normally, Effie was all for speeches. She was good at them (or so she liked to think). Back home, every Reaping had been her time to shine - and she had been overjoyed when, with Victors, she'd been able to craft a dozen speeches to unload at every district. But things had changed and it had lost its flavour, and now Effie in her uncertainty far preferred to keep things to herself or one-on-one.

She gently applauded Katniss' speech - or toast, maybe - feeling, well, overjoyed at what a strong, beautiful woman her Victor had become. Katniss was not the most eloquent person, but she always got to the soul of the matter, and she had a giving nature that Effie had only managed to see once she'd arrived at the Nexus.

Effie was still avoiding her home, pretending the Capitol did not exist - but here with all the people from her home it was somehow easier. Together, they could weather the storm. She did not dig into her food with quite the amount of fervor she was used to - without the Capitol's penchant for slimming diets, she had to be more careful in order to fit into her corsets - but what she did sample was wonderful.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Effie." Katniss is glad Effie is still here and, more importantly, that she seems happy. They're all a little different than they'd been back in Panem but Katniss thinks, for the most part, they're better off than worse.

"I know it's not home but...it's something, right?"

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