❝ it is sometimes an
appropriate response to
reality to go insane ❞
──⭒─⭑─⭒──
In which an innocent girl finds herself
trapped in an arena with monsters and
her only hope is to claw her way out.
──...
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𝔗he incident with the gun and the farm stays on our minds for weeks afterwards. Cato can't quite stomach coming back to the farm, barely being able to make the walk halfway over with me before he pales and retreats back home. I manage it because I have to, because my father has no one else to help and it's down to me, Raike and my mother to milk 150 cows, feed and wean the older set of calves, sell the bullocks and then help the cows with the younger set of calves.
Cas comes with me, Mick stays with Cato, still recovering just as my father was. Rue, when she's not busy at the orchards, comes and visits us more and more, keeping our spirits up and bringing us apples that she gets to take home. Geare visits more too, helping me at the farm when he knows that we're short of people.
The nights are worse though, for both me and Cato. I wake up, normally screaming, thinking of what Snow will do to my family, my livelihood, dreaming of all of their eyes in mutts, trying to kill me. Cato doesn't scream. He will just sit bolt upright, sweating, terrified, searching for an enemy that's coming back to hunt him down.
I stay up most nights with him if that happens.
A dog whimpers to my left, and I open one eye, finding Mick's wide eyes and smiling. Cas is sitting behind him, holding his food bowl in his mouth as I chuckle. The dogs were on a clock, having a set routine and no matter how badly we slept, at 7AM, they would be awake and wondering where breakfast was.
Cato's arm is still tight around my waist and I can feel his breathing on the back of my neck, before I turn around to face him. In the darkness of night, I can barely make out his face and for a moment, I consider not waking him but the dogs are waiting and if we don't get up, they'll clamber onto the bed and attempt to sit atop us.
Over our time together, I've learnt that the best way to wake him is slowly. Too fast, and he'll be on alert, but slowly, he'll take better to that.
"Cato..." I mumble his name quietly. If it's louder, he'll worry that I'm trying to wake him in the arena. He doesn't respond but lets out a huff of breath. I smile, tracing his hair from his face and then letting my fingers track his bones, down his jaw before settling on his lips. "Cato, the dogs are up."
Still no response, and my hand traces down and across his shoulder, across the fusion point at his elbow between his arm and the metal one, and move it gently from around my waist. He doesn't take kindly to that, eyebrows furrowing, before finally, one eye opens and I'm greeted with a slight glare.
"Hi..." I murmur, smiling as I lean up to kiss him gently, not caring about much else. "The dogs are up and I need to go and feed them before they start throwing their toys around."
