Defender of the Rainbow (starlightlady) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-05-26 18:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, feyre archeron, katniss everdeen |
Who: Katniss and Feyre
What: Feyre checks in on a friend
When: After Katniss first started Dreaming
Where: Katniss's place
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13
Katniss had a tendency to shut down when things got emotional or scary. Her dreams were undeniably that. She was short with everyone, including Feyre when she reached out. Why had she bothered? She wanted to tuck into herself and disappear, not invite more people to stare at the spectacle that was her life. And now someone was even coming over. Katniss didn’t know how to behave or how to respond to that. Someone wanted to be around her?
She had informed the door man that Feyre was coming, but that was all she managed to do. She had the whole house to herself but all she could do was numbly sit at the edge of her bed and feel disgusting.
What was the point of these stupid dreams? Did they even have one? The more she thought on it the angrier she became.
---
Feyre wouldn’t blame Katniss for being short with anyone, the way some of these dreams could go. Her own had started out with her starving to death while living in constant fear of the Fae, and had progressed through to a physically and emotionally painful set of circumstances that had involved a hospital stay. And even her happier circumstances were colored by an overarching darkness that threatened to consume all.
So she understood, even if she wasn’t going to play the trauma comparison game. The dreams could suck.
Armed with a bag filled with patron and a few other bottles of choice, Feyre was let in by the doorman, and made her way to Katniss’s apartment. She opened the door and cautiously entered. “Katniss?”
--
That was exactly what it felt like. All consuming pain. The dreams had left her breathless for quite some time, and even after she responded to things on the network, she still recalled feeling numb inside. The seam was an awful place. A place her mother had chosen to follow her absent father to literal destruction out of fairy tail love. She’d not even thought about what her children might grow up with should they have any. And of course they did. It was magical love after all before her father wound up dead and they nearly died ontop of it. The woman had checked out, and left Katniss to care for the entire family.
There was no caring though, everyone was sick and dying from malnourishment. There was no food left, it was a feeling that had woken her up a few times during the night. Starvation. It was a terrifying thing to experience and her mind had just shut down.
When she heard a voice,she wanted to respond but found it was difficult to pull words out. This was only the beginning and they were already this bad. Her apartment was all but dark save for the room she stood in, a little bit of light flooded from the door.
---
They were really more alike than Feyre realized, something she would probably understand if Katniss was forthcoming; especially the taking care of one’s family virtually on one’s own.
Feyre followed the light spilling from the bedroom, allowing her glamour to fall away like a magical cloak, and gently pushed the door open.
She remembered the time she’d nearly wasted away, trapped in Tamlin’s court. Katniss brought those memories back in a flood, but she pushed them aside and gently said. “Maybe we should start with the muffins I picked up too.”
---
At the start, the dropping of the glamour might have startled her-but after the dreams, Katniss didn’t even blink twice. The girl was sat on the edge of her bed, dressed in pajamas. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed for the day, going out wasn’t in her agenda until the potential next day. Even then, she may just be settling on inviting Cora over too. If she felt like more guests. Right then, she didn’t necessarily feel like any-but there was Feyre anyway.
“Not hungry.” She felt too sick to feel hungry, it wasn’t a thing she’d experienced before. That type of hunger, that type of pain. Who would let anyone live that way? Their government was not third world by any means. It could have taken care of it’s people if it cared.
It didn’t. It was content to let them die out or kill each other in a sickening display. Katniss had a feeling the dreams were only going to get worse. Nothing could improve from that state in a short period of time. She dreaded it. Her hand lie on her lap, the blood mostly clotted itself but the injury was still obvious. It wasn’t as small as she’d played it off to be.
--
Okay, maybe not. Feyre sat the muffins on the end table, and the bottles down as well, feeling a level of uncomfortable familiarity with how Katniss had shut down.
Carefully, she sank onto the bed next to Katniss, and gently nudged at her hand so she could get a better look at the injury; she could heal in a pinch but they probably weren’t close enough and it wasn’t serious enough considering it required drinking Feyre’s blood. Hell, Rhys was barely close enough in her opinion.
“Well. They’re there if you want them.”
--
Dark eyes shifted towards the muffins. Feyre had brought them, she should make an attempt-and yet she couldn’t bring herself to move much. When the other girl nudged for the hand, she had to make a conscious effort to give at least that over to her. Letting her see said injury. It wasn’t that deep, surface scratch. The shock of the blood had concerned her as she hadn’t really dealt with anything like that before.
“Feels like..there's a weight on my chest and I can’t move.” Why would they have to deal with these dreams? What was the point?
---
The food wasn’t a big deal, and it would keep. Feyre took a closer look at Katniss’s scratch, then gently lowered her hand back to her lap. Then she lifted her hand and brushed aside from of Katniss’s hair, wanting a better look at her eyes.
Bad dreams seemed to be an understatement.
“It’s like looking through a twisted, dirty mirror, isn’t it?”
---
She felt dead inside, all because of some stupid dream. Her gaze seemed to reflect it more than she was aware. “I don’t understand it. I don’t want to.” She didn’t want to deal with any of it, but it stuck in her mind like a thorn. There was an amount of fear in her eyes that she couldn’t hide if she tried. She didn’t shy away from that touch, it was comforting.
“You must think I’m pathetic” Letting something like a dream effect her. Dreams weren’t real, she told herself that dozens of times and yet couldn’t shake that awful feeling deep inside.
---
Feyre raised both of her eyebrows, but kept her voice gentle and calm. “You’re not pathetic. My own dreams started out with us constantly on the brink of starvation, and constantly afraid of Fae attacks from across the wall. And then I was taken past that wall, and I suffered so many hurts and injuries fighting a battle that wasn’t supposed to me mine, and then nearly wasted away from depression because the man I fell in love with kept me trapped and … worse. It was so bad that It was hard to get out of bed in the real world some mornings.”
She cupped Katniss’s cheek. “I don’t tell you this to compare who had it worse, but so you know I understand. At least a little.”
---
She wasn’t used to showing anyone this kind of emotion, so to her it seemed a little pathetic. “I’m supposed to be stronger than this.” She hated how weak she appeared. Sure she was glad the other girl wasn’t judging her for it, but Katniss was judging herself. Plenty hard at that for both of them. “In comparison I’m watching people I love starve. People I don’t even know here in the waking world and it still hurts like I know them for real. I have a little sister. She’s fine, but I see this one skin and bone and everything in me freezes up.” Like she related to her own little sister being the same way. She’d done everything to protect her that she was physically capable of and it turned out like that.
“Why are these things happening?” She didn’t move away from the touch, in fact she leaned into it instead, closing her eyes for a moment. It was like being stuck on a loading page and nothing was working properly. Katniss.exe was unavailable.
--
Feyre snorted. “Yeah, you’re supposed to be stronger than this, but you’re only human. Humans --” and Fae she supposed “--aren’t perfect and are allowed to be affected by the terrible shit that happens to them and the people they care about.”
She stroked her thumb along Katniss’s cheek bone. “I don’t know. Magic, I suppose. Or some science way beyond my education level. Maybe a little of both. Or maybe some bastard god things we need to be taught some lesson for some reason, or no reason. Maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or not.”
And whether they wanted to or not they were probably going to find out. She hoped Katniss found someone. Not necessarily romantically like Rhys, but the same way she’d found Mor and Cass, Amren and Az. A family bound together by terrible pasts and the healing of each other.
---
She tucked her feet up underneath her body and curled against Feyre’s side. The warmth was comforting. She wasn’t the easiest person to connect with others, she knew that. But she could trust Feyre. She didn’t know why she knew, or how she felt so comfortable with her when in the past it took her years to open up to anyone, but with her it just felt normal. Natural even.
“I hate it.” But she had at least made a friend or two. Those were the only good things she could admit to. And even then she didn’t really know the words for it beyond “Stay with me?” At least for the night.
---
Dropping her hand from Katniss’s face, Feyre wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close and wishing she could shield the other woman from the world -- either world, if she really thought about it.
It would be easy enough to grow her wings, and cocoon them around her, though that might be a little startling. Besides, she’d only shown them to Weiss. It felt… oddly personal and she pushed aside the question of why she’d even thought about it.
“I’m not going anywhere, I promise. If I could hide you away for awhile I would.” She smiled, her teeth like shiny points in the dim light. “Or something like that.”
---
In that warmth she was finally able to let her eyes close. Let herself just be still and quiet without being afraid of what might happen or what was crumbling around her. She was able to finally rest after the ordeal. She envied Cora who hadn’t had any dreams yet as far as she was aware, and hope hers wouldn’t be nearly as difficult to swallow. “Thank you. “ She’d never felt this vulnerable to anyone. Her mind tried to fight it, but her body did not. She was tired of fighting everyone. It was exhausting. Maybe it was time to just let someone in.
---
“You can call me any time,” Feyre whispered, her throat tight. She rested her cheek on the top of Katniss’s head. “Day or night. To cry or laugh or scream. I won’t judge.” There wasn’t a thing Katniss could do in her dreams that would make Feyre judge her, not after the things she herself had dreamed and the choices she’d made to protect herself and those who she cared about.
“I promise.”
---