sixthiterationlogs | Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 24th November
OPEN TO: E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: OPEN

Aside from the days when she'd been too drunk or too hungover to get up, Kate's kept a farmer's hours all her life. Even in winter, when the bitterly cold winds that'd come up from the south and make its way through the cracks and holes in her ma's hut, she'd get up, get dressed, do her chores. But lately, it's been harder to extract herself from her bed. Benedict's been sharing her bed more often than not lately, and the chasteness of their interactions does nothing to change how warm and safe she feels. How little she wants to get up, get dressed, go out into the colder spaces of the Inn and do her work.

So, today, she's late getting out of bed - at least, by her standards. She's late getting down the stairs. She's late, so she's hurrying; she lazed in bed, and now she needs to start the fire in the main room. Start the fire, open the shutters, show that the Inn is standing and warm. And welcome, so she moves the -

No, Kate doesn't move the chairs stacked precariously at the front door as a rudimentary alarm of someone, something, coming through, because the chairs are gone. She neither dismisses it as one of the residents not getting the message, nor panics. Instead, she just opens the shutters to let in the dawn light and see if there are footprints, except, no, the snow has mostly cleared. The day is sunny. As welcome as it is, that doesn't help at all. Miss Hoppity jumps down from the foyer's desk to rub her face against Kate's skirt, apparently entirely unconcerned.

Kate eyes the cat for a moment, then approaches the closed doors leading to the main room. Closed, but with light coming through the cracks between door and floor, door and door frame. Cautiously, Kate opens one of the doors and peers in.

Then, she gapes.

The fire is blazing - hot, cheery - but so are the candles. The candles: candles on the unused candlesticks, candles clustered on tables, light up sideboards. Candles bobbing in bowls of water and apples. Candles white, yellow and red, when the village had none. Boughs of wheat, corn, decorate tables and the mantle over the fire, apples and pumpkins and collections of yellow, orange, red flowers seem to be everywhere.

And the food.

Each table is piled high with food. Roasted, baked, cooked on stoves and Kate knows how to cook, she knows how long this would all take, how many people, and it's impossible. What she's seeing is impossible to have done with the resources on hand: even an attempt would have woken up the whole building.

Disbelieving, Kate walks in. For a moment, she's entirely dumbfounded. Miss Hoppity, however, is nothing of the sort. The cat has leapt up onto the sideboard next to Kate and - well, Kate isn't sure what happens next. Just that suddenly there's movement and something large seems to lunge at her. Miss Hoppity yowls and speeds off: Kate screams as she battles something, falling backwards and hitting the floor along with a broken bowl of water, spilled apples and some tiny candles, and her attacker.

Pushing the food-turkey off her, Kate sits up and is, for once, entirely lost for words.

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She startles, a bit, at someone talking to her, particularly with Finnick sitting right there. And yet, Cougar's addressing her. Talking to her. Offering her - offering her actually decent advice.

Annie smiles at him, more shy than painfully uncertain.

"Tha, um, thank you," she says. Then, a little emboldened by warmth around her and warmth in her belly, she adds, "I think, the uh, problem is just not stuffing my face. With everything."

"Sometimes, it's worth it," he says, still glancing sideways to Finnick and shrugging as he takes a chair near to them, but not next to them, saluting her with his beer in order to give it a thoughtful look. "If you save them, you will have many bottles," he jokes, given their last conversation.

"And why not eat? It will go bad," he says. "And if you have protein and vegetables, it will not be too different."

"Save the lids, if you can," Annie replies, the corner of her mouth lifting up more. "Lids are harder. But, uh, least if things got broke or lost, got base materials. Can make other things."

He's joking, she knows. But she can't help it, but try and answer him anyway.

"I'll eat. But throwing up's awful. Done that before."

Without quite meaning to, it's an admission that she and Finnick haven't been eating well. Not as well as the village, certainly not since the weather's turned.

Then, with a spot of bravery that's only because Finnick's by her side, Annie asks, "What's gonna happen with all the food?"

"It will spoil," he says as he looks at what there is, judging what might be preserved and what will be able to go in cold storage. Shrugging, Cougar sees it as a necessary evil. "We cannot store it all, so whatever we do not eat today and tomorrow and cannot preserve, maybe we will fatten up animals," he reasons, thinking that it might be good to do that. "Or compost, if the weather stays nice."

Watney would probably like the extra food to help with growing the fields, especially as the weather turns colder.

"Could use it as bait," she suggests, with a feeling like she's walking on tight rope over a heaving deck. This is a ploy for allies, not-

But this is a strange game, and she's trying to find out the rules. This game might be won by alliance more than the fleeting, dangerous ones in the arena. A genuine alliance, where maybe everyone gets to live.

It's a horrible thought, not in of itself but because of all the doors it opens.

"For the, the fish, I mean. Sometimes they're not fussy."

Somewhere, her metaphorical waves start to get worse, making her metaphorical rope sway and her actual stomach tighten.

"An, any. Um. Any plans for folks takin' the food back? So it, it doesn't all spoil?"

Cougar watches her without blinking, waiting until she finishes her thought. She keeps talking and talking, but until the very end, the only thing that matters, really, is the last question. He's only looking at her when he answers, leaning forward in order to answer her. "I'm sure if you made sure that everyone was okay with it, they would happily let you take your share," he says.

"Why do you act like it will go away?"

Annie doesn't reply at first, she just eats. A potato, and then a piece of what she's heard the others say is turkey. It doesn't taste anything like what the Capitol gives them for the Harvest Feastival, though. Like actual meat.

"'Cos food always does. And in the Games, people would kill to hoard all this. So, it's."

Saying she's waiting, ever and always waiting, for violence to happen seems to be too rude. Too much like maybe giving people ideas. Maybe, also now, coming across as too paranoid and strange.

"Habit."

Cougar raises a brow at her comment. He's also seen people having to kill each other to eat, desperate to have a way to keep living. Here, though, they share and they work with each other, so he's not entirely sure why she thinks that it will go wrong.

Then, she says 'habit' and he understands, at least a little more. "No one will kill each other for food," he says, a dark look on his face. "I will not let that happen."

She watches. Eats and watches, her dark eyes distant as she evaluates him. Then, she offers a smile. It is an offering: a shy, cautious overture of friendliness.

"Will you glare at them?"

She hopes that's okay, her statement. She doesn't want to come across as if she's interrogating him, or doubting him. He's quiet but capable, this man. Or he comes across that way.

Cougar gives her a look that says she knows better than to assume he's just going to glare. "No, I will stop them," he says firmly, knowing that with Jake here, he doesn't have to worry about picking a fight without having backup. He won't end their lives, but he will make sure that they haven't withheld anything from the people who need it.

"Wouldn't you?"

Annie shrugs, looking at her plate. It is almost as if she's having trouble getting that cranberry on her fork, but she's not quite good enough to make the fumbling seem genuine.

Wouldn't you?

No.

Not her. Unless it was by having hysterics and providing a distraction. She runs, she knows that. She runs, she hides. She-

Helps. Helped. Once. Understandable, in the bloodbath of the games' opening.

"I'm bad with people," is what she says, finally.

"I'm bad with words," is Cougar's reply to that, shrugging his shoulders seeing as it's not like he's ever been good with them. No, that's a lie. He hasn't been good at them since the army, but it's the truth now. He's not good with words and that's something he lives with.

"Don't eat too much," he says as he swivels to stand. "But don't deny it, either."

She has the sense then of missing something. An opportunity, an understanding: there is the sense, true or not, of him being disappointed in her. It might not be true. She makes things up. She even makes things up about Finnick, although he is mostly immune to her paranoia.

So she blinks, sharply, and her mouth twists a little.

But, still, she manages to speak. Keep her voice even. She's overreacting.

"I won't," Annie says. "I know the worth of all of this."

Calories. Energy.

Important.

Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

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