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

[lastofthekellys]

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.

Comments

[thecatinahat]

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."

[treadswater]

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.

[thecatinahat]

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?"

[treadswater]

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.

[thecatinahat]

"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."

[treadswater]

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.