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It's been six months and five days. One hundred and eighty-six days since she had watched her sister burn like a pyre. One hundred and forty-five days since she sought out her revenge. Since she executed Coin and secured her freedom, her only chance to be free of anyone's strings and no longer be a pawn in their games. Less days than that since she returned to District 12. Only sixty-seven there. Fifty-three since Peeta's return and her first attempt to leave the house. She had made it as far as the fence and had to get a ride home in Thom's cart, sitting where all the dead had earlier that day.

The numbers roll through her head as she makes her way through the familiar forests. Reminders of how far she's come. Of life and living and that need to keep moving forward. It plays through her mind along with other words. Her name: Katniss Everdeen. Her age: eighteen. She lives in District 12 again. Commander Paylor is now President Paylor. There are no more Hunger Games. No more war. And somehow, she survived. She survived and others didn't and no matter how hard she tries, she still doesn't understand.

So it's easier to leave every morning right at sunrise. Before Dr. Aurelius can call her or Peeta can stop by. Before Haymitch might be out of his drunken stupor and before Greasy Sae or anyone else might stop by to check on her. Even in the May sun, she wears her leather jacket. Because it's easier to cover up, to hide the scars that might attract attention. Quiver and bow are slung across her back and her bag bounces against her thigh as she walks slowly along the edge of the meadow, carrying her supplies. She takes another step forward and...

...and she stops.

Gone is the fresh air. Gone is the slight breeze and the sickly sweet smell of corpses yet to be fully buried. Mockingjays no longer make noise in the distance. There's a different sort of chatter now. A different smell in the air.

Her heart skips a beat in her chest. There are people here. People in a place that looks like a bar but... but can't be a bar. Because there's no bar that looks like this in District 12. There's no time for the people of 12 to just sit around, doing absolutely nothing. Not with all the cleanup and the rebuilding and this can't be possible.

She takes a breath and forces herself to move. Her eyes dart around, aware and alert, already assessing the people in the room and the room itself. Looking for weaknesses, for entrances and exits, for anything she can use for defense in addition to her bow. She doesn't understand it. She doesn't know how she got here, why she's here, or even where here is. But she refuses to be caught off guard. She refuses to have survived this long only to die in... in some new game?

Did they change their mind? Decide that she was too dangerous to be kept in District 12 after all? Bring her back... someplace, alongside all the other unwanted and dangers from the old Capitol? She looks around and tries to spot someone familiar. When that fails, she forces herself to speak loudly, in as firm and threatening a tone as possible.

"I want to talk to President Paylor. Now."

It's only later, after matters are explained, that she's found herself sitting at one of the tables in the corner nursing a cup of tea, that she might be a little more approachable. But there's still a suspicious and angry look on her face and a steel glint in her eye. Her bow and quiver and bag are on the floor next to her but she keeps the skinning knife beside her hand.

Just in case.

The odds have never been in her favor.

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"Spaceship," Natasha repeats. "Currently in dock around the planet Risa." Her mouth twitches into a quick, somewhat wry smile. "We don't exactly have this kind of technology in my time, either."

She regards the girl for a long moment, and keeps her hands in the air.

"I was brought here, like you. Not by the crew, but by someone else. A guy called Q. There's a few of us now. Captain Picard and the rest of the crew treat us as guests. We're given lodging, food. They just request that we don't disturb the every day running of the ship."

Natasha holds Katniss's gaze for a moment and then, very pointedly, glances over to some of the security officers standing by. The officers have their phasers still in their holsters, and their stance is more wary than anything else, but they are there.

"May I lower my hands?"

Even if she claims that they don't have this level of technology wherever she's from, there's still a sense of understanding in the way she says it. Like this could possibly be normal for the woman. That it doesn't sound nearly as abnormal to her as it does to Katniss. Spaceship? Planet?

No. None of it makes sense. And almost everything explained to her earns a scowl.

That is except one thing.

They were brought here. Guests or not, they were brought here.

Her face goes ashen and though she doesn't let go of the bow, any thought of using the weapon is gone. Now, she's doing her best not to collapse. Not to fall on to the floor and hug her knees to her chest and cry. Quickly, Katniss shakes her head. Everything else said goes past her.

She needs to be strong. She doesn't know how to be strong.

It's a game.

"...a game?" Tougher. She needs to be tougher. "Are we in a game?"

"No." Her voice is firm. She can't read the girl well enough to know if kindness would set her off faster than firmness, but it's easier to switch from the latter to the firmer.

"Not literally. What do you mean by 'a game'?"

A flicker of disbelief crosses her face. Did the woman really just ask that? Is there really someone out there that doesn't know what she means when Katniss asks about games? The notion is maybe more inconceivable than the idea of being in a spaceship at another planet.

She never really gave much thought to the parts of Earth outside of Panem, outside of North America in general. They never really mentioned that in school. Plutarch had mentioned other places to her once. Mentioned a place called Rome and their bread and circuses. She had considered it all for a second before returning to her narrow frame of thought, a world kept entirely within the borders of Panem. To her, no place existed where there weren't games.

"Entertainment for the Gamemak-" She cuts off, scowling as she tries to remember the name the woman used. "For Q. Entertainment for people he considers acceptable and a reminder to the rest of us of who's in control."

A painful reminder, usually. Reminders for uprising and loss of Capitol life, taken in the payment of children. She won't break, she reminds herself. She can't break if this is another game. She can't do that, not yet. Not until there are answers.

So, almost calmly, "Are we supposed to kill each other?"

Natasha arches her eyebrows at that. She can't say that she's particularly surprised - not with the kid's reactions, not with the way she said 'game' - and yet...

"No. There'd be no one left by now if we were," she adds, because it's the truth, because maybe pragmatism works.

"No, whatever game Q is playing, if it's that sinister, he's playing a long-con to lead up to it. So far, it seems to be more, hm. Drop people here and see what happens."

She doubts that that's completely true. There would be someone left. The Victor - that one person that survives despite all the odds against them. Because of luck or because of skill, it doesn't matter. Someone always survives the Hunger Games. Someone would survive here, too.

It could also be only a matter of time until the killing starts. Games take many forms. She's learned that the hard way.

"But it's still a game."

She regards the girl for a long moment and then nods slightly, the gesture directed at herself.

"Not as you've seemingly come from. But, if that's the way you want to think of it, okay.

But it's the kind of game where if you kill anyone here? It's not for points, it's not war. It's a criminal act.

So. That's your call."

It doesn't matter to her. It doesn't matter if it's a war or a crime or if it's for any kind of points. If she has to, she'll kill. She'll kill anyone she has to in order to stay alive. And without hesitation, without any care for the consequences. She hasn't made it this far, she hasn't survived this much to just quit now.

The determination gleams in her eyes, that stubborn hint that she's already disregarded everything the woman just said. But she doesn't care. Let the woman think what she wants. Katniss knows that she's not a good person. She knows it better than anyone else might.

Still, there's one thing she wants to make clear: "It's not for points."

It's never been for points.

"Isn't it?" Natasha comments, arching her eyebrows. "Because all you're talking about is games, and I have no idea what you mean by that."

The girl wants to survive. Wants to live in the kind of bitter, ruthless way Natasha can actually empathise with. But you don't survive without learning how to adapt to a changing environment, and she's really hoping the girl is going to remember this before Security lose their patience.

She'll remember. Even if she's never been good at playing by the rules, she always remembers them. If just so she can reprimand herself later and add to the ever growing list of reasons why she's far from a good person.

This woman doesn't seem to know anything familiar to Katniss and it still puzzles her some. She can't keep the confusion off her face. Or the inherent annoyance over the woman's lack of knowledge.

"The Hunger Games," she says with a scowl. "You don't play for points. You play for your life."

The confusion continues.

For the girl to be that insistent, that assuming that everyone knows, then those games had to be at the very least completely national and open, if not international. Open. Public. Accepted.

And she was talking about hovercrafts...

"We don't have them," is what Natasha actually says. "Not on my planet. Or my version of reality, whichever is more applicable. And they don't have them here."

She tilts her head, looking at the woman with a blank sort of stare. None of it makes sense to her. The idea of different planets or of different versions of reality. Storybooks were never very common in District 12. Any fiction she knew came mostly from song and the mountain airs she had grown up with had never touched on anything remotely similar to what the woman implies.

So even though it bothers her to admit ignorance this early on, ignorance that can easily be used against her, she forces out the words anyway: "I don't understand."

She'll count it as a tiny step forward.

"Which bit?" she asks without judgement and then adds, "I can't explain easily unless I know what I have to explain."

That's not the response she had been hoping to hear. Admitting to a lack of understanding had been difficult. She doesn't know where this woman is from. From whatever sort of other planet... however that can even possibly be something real. Katniss isn't even sure anything exists outside of Panem, let alone elsewhere.

She grows defensive quickly, a little bit out of habit. She scowls at her.

"All of it." A beat. Okay. Maybe she can specify a little bit better. "Realities?"

Natasha nods. Something to work with it.

"Think of it as like...a song. You can have the same song, but maybe there are variations in the lyrics. Or some people play it faster, or with different instruments.

A reality is what we consider real. What is real. So it's the song. But there can be different versions, where things have happened differently. For example, there might be a reality where I ended up a teacher. Or where events in the past moved differently, and my country as it stands never existed.

Does that make sense? It's..." she makes a face. "Not an easy thing to understand, even if you've been familiar with the idea for a while."

That's something she understands. She thinks how the dances differ a bit between the Districts. Songs, customs, general traditions. Although they're all one Panem, there are differences between the Districts. It's strange to picture something similar between... what's the word she uses? Realities?

It's far from anything she's ever been taught. And it makes her wonder. Is there a reality where Prim had never been reaped? Or where she never became the Mockingjay? Or Peeta had never been hijacked?

She nods slowly, but she feels herself closing off as she does. She doesn't like this way of thinking. She doesn't like all the what-ifs.

"Okay."

Neither does Natasha.

(Although a lifetime of being a science-fiction geek does, at least, prepare you for the concept.)

"So, we're from...different songs. Most people here are. Not just different from yours or mine, but different from each other's."

Maybe eventually she'll get used to the idea, given enough time. But for now, she's starting to think that she just wants to be alone. She wants to find somewhere that she can hide and think. Or maybe not think. She's not sure.

It's a lot of information to take in at once. And for now, as far as she knows, she's all alone. She's trapped in some new arena, one that she can't seem to escape. An arena with other realities and worlds and...

It'd be so, so much easier to run away right now.

But she holds her ground. There will be time to break, later. For now: "What else should I know?"

"Practicalities," Natasha says, keeping her voice measured. "The crew provide us with rooms. There is temporary accommodation for the first few days, and you're restricted to that area of the ship and this room. Then there is a medical check, and you'll be assigned a room and a roommate. Once that's done, you'll have access to more of the ship.

You can request if you'd prefer to room with someone in particular, or if you'd prefer to room with a woman, or... things like that.

Secondly, food is also provided. You can ask the barstaff, or order something from that machine of there," and she points to the replicator. "That machine can also provide clean clothes.

As they are treating us as guests, we're not being charged for any of that. What they do ask for in return is that we keep the peace. And, the captain of this vessel is called Jean-Luc Picard. Head of Security is Whorf, main barkeeper is Guinan."

There's more, of course there is. But it is a lot to take in, even that much.

"If you get lost, ask the computer at the screen on the wall, and it'll direct you or show you a map.

Anything else off the top of your head?"

The information is helpful, if not a little hard to believe. Free food and free clothing. Being treated like guests. That all sounds absolutely impossible to her. Maybe it's something that the Gamemakers here do. Lull them into a false sense of security, make them feel safe here and then alter the rules of the game all together. She'll have to make a point of starting a small food stash. Just in case.

Katniss doesn't thank the woman for the information. She just shakes her head at the question instead. Everything else, she'll do her best to figure out. Somehow.

Without playing too much into their games.

"Okay," she says, and then steps back towards her chair and table. If that's all the girl wants...

"Well. Welcome to the Enterprise."

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