For Misty.
Wc: 227
Twice, her fingers wrap around his wrist. Once, gently, like twine twisted in a braid. The second, like a cuff, hard and unyielding, blood slicking her palms as she gurgles her last.
But the first goes like this.
The two of them are nocturnal, almost, coming alive only in the night when the trainers are asleep and they can steal into the courtyard and shed years, turning into children.
This night is unlike the others. It is warm, a summer breeze that's in love with the trees blowing through the trees as the sky gives them their privacy. Cato has been training too hard, but Clove feels she's been too easy on him; they've sparred into the evening. They switch between weapons, because you never know what you might encounter in the arena, but when Clove gets her knives, Cato never wins.
"There," she says, grasping his forearm with agility and thrusting forward towards his eye with her other hand. The knife stops a hair before its mark.
"Fine," Cato grumbles, getting to his feet again.
Her fingers loosen, slide down to his wrist, feels the pulse that reminds her he's still human. She takes back her knife and leans back out of their previously awkward position, instead placing a warm palm on his thigh.
He shivers and can't blame the cold, memorizing each of her callouses.