You ask - I answer :) ah the power of reviews...
I had a friend read over this to see if it really was fairly intelligible even without prior knowledge of Skyrim, and she said it reads like any other fantasy novel. I could probably change all the names and things to generic stuff, but it just seemed easier to leave it Skyrim, since I was basing the AU world off of it anyway.
She made quick work of them; but let it not be said that Cato did nothing. He had his fair share of killing strikes. This, he was made for—this, he knew how to do on instinct. He could tell that she was impressed by how effectively he could hold his own, tilting her head slightly, almost appraising him in a new light. He turned away from her piercing gaze, moving to clean off the blood from his blade.
He looked away, intending to continue down the path when he noticed she wasn't following.
No, she was crouched over one of the bodies, almost clerically moving around the dead man and into his—
He gaped, visibly drawing back. "What in the hell are you—
And watched with suspended disbelief as she unearthed a sack of coins from the man's pockets, and then moved to do the same from the others.
At his surprise, she looked up. "What does it look like?" She deadpanned, flatly, diverting her attention once more to her work.
"They're dead." He said, needlessly.
"Yes." She agreed. "And what good do the dead need of their coins."
He sneered. "It's disgusting."
"It's smart." She retorted, a bite to her words. She stood then, tucking away the excess. "I know you're from the District—but the fact of the matter is, this is no District. Here, you do whatever you can to survive—even if it's not morally correct, or ethical even." She tilted her head. "Is that not what you would do, in the arena?"
He scowled. "I suppose." He bit out, deciding she may have had a point.
With that, she sauntered off, leaving him to follow.
.
.
.
Cato didn't want to admit it, but by the time they stopped for the night, he was thoroughly exhausted. So exhausted that he plopped right down with his back against a tree and passed out on impact. He'd have been a little more horrified with himself for letting his guard down so blatantly and easily, but he'd honestly been too tired to think, let alone think on his actions.
When he awoke some time later, the omniscient, indomitable moon had besieged the night sky. There were, perhaps, a few rustling movements here and there, but aside from the long, sorrowful song of the crickets it was entirely silent.
Silent.
He bolted upright, blinking out the sleep in his eyes. He couldn't make out anything for a moment, as his eyes adjusted. Finally his vision cleared; he was still sleeping against the same tree, in the same small clearing. He reached first for his sword, feeling sweet relief when his hands met the cold, steel handle.
Then he turned his attention outwards, to all the things he could see—and then, with horror, realizing what he couldn't see.
Maybe she hadn't left him to die out here, he reasoned. Why go through all the trouble of starting the journey if she was just going to kill him? Or go through the effort of making a sword for him? Right?
"If you're tired, you should sleep more."
He jumped—again—attention turning skyward at the familiar voice.
Katniss peered down at him with an unreadable expression, held aloft on the sloping arch of a tree branch. One leg dangled listlessly off the side, the other propped up to keep footing. She had her bow in one hand, ready if needed, but her other hand rested pliantly in her lap; he didn't doubt that she could draw an arrow and strike him before he could even blink, though.
Then her words caught up to him. "I'm not tired," he flushed, which was ridiculous. It was rather conclusive to see he was.
"Can you climb?" She asked, completely ignoring him.
He blinked. Could he? He'd never actually attempted to climb a tree. "Sure," he replied—it couldn't be that hard, right?
"Come up here, then," she returned, not really a question or a command.
Normally this would elicit his ire, but for some reason it doesn't. Maybe he's just learning to accept the fact that she knows far more than he does. Or maybe it just had something to do with her tone; not demanding, snide, or impertinent. It made him a lot more willing to comply.
He hoisted himself up until he was level with her branch. She scooted over so that his back was against the trunk, and she sat opposite of him, cradled in a divergence of branches. Her mask was off, he noticed. She looked even younger in the night. The wan, wintry spill of the moon drifted down the side of her face, illuminating one stormy eye; shifting patterns filtered down from the leaves.
He regarded her searchingly. "Are you not going to sleep?" He asked at length, wondering if she'd slept at all during the time he'd essentially passed out.
"I'll sleep," she answered, ambiguous as usual.
He swallowed. And then, slowly, "Do you want me to keep watch?"
"No," she returned. "We'll be fine." And then, with a hint of amusement, "As long as you don't fall off."
"I wouldn't!" He protested, even though he really had no idea. He had no empirical evidence to support or deny the claim. Well, he'd find out eventually, wouldn't he?
He watched her wander off into her dreams at some point in the night. The moment seemed timeless, caught fast beneath the noctilucent moon and the murky darkness of the night. He didn't know how much time passed as he simply sat there, wondering if he'd even be able to find sleep, watching her sleep with a fastidious eye. He wished he could join her; the night was giving him far too much time to think. What if they journey all the way to this mage, only to find that he can't help? What if he has to stay here… forever?
The prospect sounded horrifying. Far too horrifying to contemplate.
He must drift off eventually, for a sudden, algid wind brought him into a wakefulness he didn't remember leaving.
Cato jolted out of his doze, shaking his head to clear the haze. The night had long since maundered past the horizon, leaving the indeterminable dusty sky in its wake. If there was a sun in this place, it didn't seem all that interested in making an appearance. Still, the world was illuminated enough for him to make out the girl in front of him, awake, staring off into the distance.
He followed her gaze; the world unfurled endlessly around them, vast and indomitable. Terrifying. He'd never seen such continuous, unending space. He felt incredibly small in comparison—never before had the world seemed so big.
Her hand rose slowly, pointing somewhere in the indiscernible distance.
"The town of Helgen is that way," she reported. "In the shadow of the largest mountain."
Largest was an understatement. All the mountains here loomed down upon the earth like wrathful gods, yet this one towered above all the rest. The peak lay obscured in the atmospheric gray haze.
"How far is it?" He asked, warily, wondering if he truly wanted to know the answer.
She shrugged. "A day or two, perhaps."
"And what's after Helgen?"
Katniss turned to him, with a surveying glance. "Rivendell, then the plains of Whiterun. And after that we make north for Dawnstar."
He blinked, suddenly feeling very lost. "…Which way is north?" He felt very stupid for asking, but he didn't know how else he would know. He felt like this was probably explained away in some survival class, but he'd never thought it would be all that useful.
To his surprise, Katniss does not remark upon this at all—his classmates and fellow Careers certainly would, it was such a foolish question—pointing once again towards Helgen.
"That's north," she explained, keeping her gaze fixated on it. "You can always tell which direction you're going in by using the sun; it sets in the west and rises in the east."
Huh. "What about at night?"
"There are guiding stars," she answered, evasively. "I'd have to show you at night—it's a little difficult to explain."
Then she hopped right off the branch, to his unending disbelief. It wasn't exactly a short fall. She didn't even appear to acknowledge the distance though, dropping into a crouch and rising smoothly. He had a feeling that he'd break something if he tried that, and decided to just take the long way down.
"North, then?" He asked, once they were both on the ground.
She nodded. "North it is."
It quickly became apparent that Katniss was an infinite well of knowledge.
It annoyed him at first—why did she have to know everything? And be so pragmatic about it? He'd never met anyone who was so efficient, so competent and skilled. But after a while he stopped thinking of her as just another rival in the arena, and his vexation faded into general curiosity. Cato couldn't remember the last time he was so interested in learning something; mainly because whatever he was being taught normally seemed so useless. But everything Katniss did seemed to have a logistical purpose to it, and he was beginning to find himself begrudgingly impressed. He could admit to himself (privately) that if he was trapped in the arena with her he'd never have a chance of coming out alive—he didn't think anyone would.
"You're rather inquisitive," she noted, after he'd prodded her about tracking and finding footsteps on the ground.
He fidgeted slightly, "I just… wanted to know." Even to him it sounded defensive.
"There's nothing wrong with it," she pointed out, voice light.
"There is though," he muttered, more to himself than to her.
Of course she heard it though; the girl must have ears like a bat. She tilted her head, slightly, as an affirmation that she heard him, but not as an indication that she expected an elaboration.
He found himself giving one anyway. "This all just seems like basic stuff I should already know," he scowled fiercely at the ground they were treading upon.
She made a noncommittal noise.
Around them, the wilderness bloomed with the flourishing signs and sounds of life. He thought if he listened closely enough, he could hear running water somewhere nearby. Though he could still see no sun, a certain diffusive glow wandered about the land as a gossamer cloak, lighting everything in a marmoreal light. He noted, almost absently, that in this brightness her hair dark hair had taken upon a striking bronze coloring; a gauntlet of gold in the otherwise unsubstantial world.
"Well, that's not entirely true," she reasoned, surfacing him from his strange thoughts. "You most likely never would have needed to know any of this."
"Something tells me you wouldn't find any difficulties holding down the cornucopia." She added, almost humorously.
But this only made him think upon another evasive answer she had given him in the past.
"How do you know?" He asked, in an about face. "About the cornucopia? About the Hunger Games? About Panem, at all?"
She doesn't answer him for some time, gazing off into the distance.
The forest has retreated and in its wake winding hills roll across the horizon, the wind casting patterns upon the wild grass. Though there was no snow, it felt frigid cold.
"I don't know," she said, at great length.
This is even more of an obscure answer than usual.
"How do you not know?" He balked, genuinely curious.
She shrugged. "I wish I could tell you," Katniss sighed. "But it's a question I've never been able to answer. Honestly, if I had something to tell you, I would. It would probably be helpful."
"So what… it's just, magic?" He hazarded.
"It's not any magic I've ever encountered, if so." She snorted. That was another thing he was surprised about.
"What kind of magic have you encountered, then?" He repositioned.
He'd noticed that there were things that were… certainly unnatural. Her bow, for instance. It lit up with a violent electricity whenever she drew it, and her arrows pierced upon flesh like a lightning strike, leaving nothing but singed ashes in its wake. He'd thought it was some kind of machine, but it was becoming apparent that there weren't many machines here. And her mask—it made him… feel something. Something ominous. It most definitely wasn't natural. And he'd seen bandits cast flames and sparks—hell, he saw a cat person not too long ago.
Cato folded his arm around himself, feeling a shiver run through him.
"Spells and enchantments, I suppose," Katniss replied, idly flipping a dagger between her fingers as they walked. He kept eying it carefully, thinking she might stab herself in the toe or something, but the movement seemed far too practiced for that.
"Like on your bow?" He pressed, rubbing his hands up and down his arms.
"Yeah," she agreed. "That's an enchantment. A mage can do it for you—for a price, of course."
"And the mask?" Cato glanced at her. Was she not cold? Or was there an enchantment for that too?
At this, she paused. "Yes, the mask too." She held up the dagger, catching the hilt in her palm. "This too. It burns with fire when used. We could probably get an enchantment on yours too if we—
She cut herself off, suddenly, stilling. He almost ran right into her, but caught himself just in time.
He looked around. Was there something he was missing? The stone path meandered in the shadows of a steep mountain; they banked against the great rocks at its feet on one side, and on the other was an infinite sprawl of meadows and trees. He rubbed his arms faster, breath fogging in the crisp morning air.
"It's cold, isn't it?" She whispered, low.
He gave her an incredulous look. Was she just noticing this now? "Yeah, just a bit." He bit out, caustically.
She frowned. "No, it's—
But then she was darting in front of him, and in a flash of silvery light the dagger had left her hands and pierced itself into a creature of dilapidated flesh. It keeled over, head cleaved in two, and he looked down at it in horror.
It looked so out of place here, in the fine and still wilderness.
It looked like… "Is that a corpse?" He yelped, shocked.
"A draugr," she amended, sounding bitter. She kept a keen eye fixated on the base of the mountain, where cliffs and large buffetings of rocks obscured the view, as she moved towards the body.
Whatever it was, it looked like it was dead… and had been dead for some time.
She pulled the handle out of the remains of its face, and he continued to stare down at it in both morbid fascination and disbelief.
"They're…" she made a vague wave with her hand. "Well, they're dead."
"I can see that." He agreed, faintly.
"You don't see them outside of dungeons, normally," she noted. "They're undead Nordic warriors, buried inside Skyrim's crypts and catacombs."
Katniss took his arm, with a grip far stronger than he had expected, and quickly drew them both off the path and farther away from the mountain, her gaze fixated on the valley.
"Sorry about that," she said, when they were apparently a sufficient distance away. She dropped his arm, and without her hand it felt far colder than he expected. "I was trying to avoid those."
"So there's a lot of them?" He inferred with wide, concerned eyes. Cato didn't feel annoyed with his own fear; he felt it was completely warranted, given the circumstances.
"Oh yes," she replied, as if that wasn't utterly horrifying. "Quite a few. But like I said, it's very rare to see them outside of their catacombs, so it's unlikely we'll have to worry about them, unless we're venturing into the tombs of the dead."
He shudder. "I would prefer not to."
"Me too," Katniss agreed, quiet.
.
.
.
The rest of the journey to Helgen was significantly less interesting after that. Not that Cato was complaining.
The town of Helgen was far smaller than the town they'd been in previously—so infinitely smaller than any District. It may have been smaller than the last town, but it was also far less crowded, and the inn wasn't completely booked solid. He missed all the amenities he'd never paid much attention to back home; what he wouldn't do right now for a heater. Or a microwave—or food that didn't come from a pack. Still, though the inn did not hold a candle to his lodgings in District 2, it was far superior to the wilds outside.
They couldn't actually get a room with two beds, because there were no rooms with two beds, but the one they did have was big enough for the both of them… sort of. It would probably have been the gentlemanly thing to do to offer her the bed and take the chair—except there was no chair, either.
"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted, when he at least made the attempt to sleep on the floor. "You want to die of frostbite?"
She had a very fair point. He really wasn't used to this cold. She'd said that Skyrim was at the northernmost tip of this strange continent called Tamriel, so he supposed that this was probably a normal temperature for the far north. District 2 was most certainly not the far north of Panem—he didn't even know what was, actually.
All this meant that by the time they had readied for bed—after a hot meal, which wasn't even all that good but felt like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted after so long without one—he was already incredibly cold. There was a fire out in the main area outside, but none in here.
This was his excuse when he woke up wrapped around her, the both of them curled tight under the flimsy quilt.
He'd never actually shared a bed with anyone. Well, not the whole night through, anyway. He was no stranger to women, in a bed, that also included him, but never for sleeping. He acknowledged that he should probably move away, but was failing on the moving part. But she was so very warm, and he was already so comfortable. Whatever. He could move away later.
When Cato awoke again he'd somehow managed to get himself even closer, one arm held fast against her, resting on her stomach, his legs tangled in hers and his forehead resting against her neck; one long line of warmth fitted perfectly against him. He didn't think there was an inch of space between them, a place they weren't touching. Even more alarming; she was clearly awake, blinking sightlessly at the far wall.
He pulled away, flushing. "Sorry—
But she didn't seem all that concerned with him at all. This made him pause. What, did she normally share the bed with random male strangers? Well he supposed it was only awkward if you made it awkward, and she seemed to be doing a fine job of being completely indifferent to it.
Katniss rolled over then, onto her back, turning her large, cloud eyes towards him. "District 12," she said, to his unending surprise. "Have you ever been there?"
His brows raised. Had he ever been there? What kind of question was that? Who the hell voluntarily goes to District 12? He snorted. "No, fortunately."
She made a thoughtful noise, gaze moving to the ceiling. She was still close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off of her, in the most inviting and intoxicating way possible.
"Why do you ask?"
She swallowed. He found himself very interested in the movement.
"I have no idea," she answered, low and quiet. "I was just thinking about it, I guess."
He gave her an odd look. "That's a really strange thing to be thinking about."
She sat up then, running a wary hand through her hair. It was out of its usual domineering, utilitarian braid, loose curls tousled and haphazard, spilling over her shoulders. Now that she wasn't covered in copious amounts of clothing, he noted that she really was particularly small. He surveyed her closer. Small, but strong. He could see the wiry muscles as she repositioned her weight, the deft dips and shadows down her arm as she dropped it from her hair.
"I was thinking about the fence," she added, as if that wasn't even stranger. "It's never on. There's no current running through it."
Katniss turned to him. "You have to check anyway though, just in case. But if you don't hear the humming, you can slip out into the forest."
He stared up at her, uneasy. "…How do you know all this?"
A conflicted look filtered upon her face, and she carded her fingers through her hair once more. He thought it might be something of a nervous gesture, but the idea of her being nervous—or not completely infallible—seemed preposterous.
"I don't know," she sighed, looking away. It seemed to pain her far more than it did him, and it really pained him. Anything she knew about the relationship between this strange world and his own would be really beneficial right now, but she appeared to know just as much as he did.
She got up soon after that, but told him that they wouldn't be leaving for a while so he was free to stay, or do whatever he liked.
He took that as a sign that she didn't need him (or, maybe just didn't want him) wherever she was going. Cato flopped back onto the bed at that. Better for him, then. He was never going to take a bed and a blanket for granted ever again—and would forever take the opportunity to lay in it for longer if it was presented to him. It felt somewhat invasive to simply lay there and watch her dress for the day. Invasive… and intimate. It wasn't as if she had taken much off, or was even revealing skin at all, but there was still something so personal about it; watching her wind her nimble fingers through her hair, until it was settled into a tidy braid once again; slipping on her jacket and armor; leaning down to tie up her boots. He wanted to look away, but found himself incapable.
"If you do go out... don't wander out of the city," she cautioned, before she turned to leave.
"Why's that?" He asked, sitting up slightly.
She spared him a short glance, before tying her mask on. "This place has a history of dragon attacks."
He sputtered. "Dragons?"
But she was already gone.
.
.
.
And stayed gone, for most of the day.
He did end up getting tired of the bed—against all rational and logical belief—and got up lazily some time in the late morning. There was real, if not bland, food at the inn, and after that he found himself restless enough to wander outside and brave the thought of dragons. He thought she might have been kidding: the inn keeper shot that thought down really quick. There was, indeed, a history of dragons in Helgen.
Great.
Fortunately he didn't encounter any dragons, or much of anything at all.
The town was far smaller than any he'd ever seen before, squatting in the apex of a small knoll at the base of the large mountain range. The white peaks scraped against the cesious sky, but were all successfully dwarfed by one in the far distance, which seemed to pierce right through the stratosphere and into an entirely different world. He felt rather humbled by it, actually. It was such an indomitable presence, so much larger than his own. After being out here in the wilds for long enough, he had no delusions that the mountain didn't have the capacity to kill him. Mountain vs. Cato—the mountain would win.
Everything here was so grand and unfettered, from the great peaks above to the people wandering below. They lived in a freedom he'd never seen before. Their existence seemed… simple, and surely not as advanced as any of the Districts—but in return they lived just as wildly and untamed as the rest of this place. If there were any laws or rules here in Skyrim, he was wholly unaware of them.
Katniss returned in the late afternoon, dragging the carcasses of three enormous bears in her wake.
As she had told him before, she skinned them all and picked out pieces of meat with a diligent proficiency that spoke of great familiarity with this process. He was both sickened and fascinated with it all, and by the time she was done she had made a wide profit off of two of the pelts, and they had what could have been an infinite supply of dried meat.
By the time this was all finished, the day had whittled away to little embers lined upon the mountains, the sun falling from the sky and leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
Cato turned towards the opening in the gates, where the great wild lay just outside of the city. "Are we going to keep going?"
"We could," she debated, reluctant. "But we wouldn't make it far enough to get to Riverwood by nightfall."
And, like him, he could tell Katniss would prefer a bed over the forest any day as well.
She'd kept the last bear pelt as her own, laying it out over them in replacement of the ragged quilt.
It was far warmer under the thick furs, and though he didn't do anything particularly strenuous all day, he still managed to fall asleep under it in a few scant moments. Even underneath the cozy warmth of the bear pelt, he stirred some time in the middle of the night, and found himself tightly wound against her once more.
Again, he found himself unwilling to move. And again, he simply dozed off and promised to remove himself closer to dawn.
Except dawn came once more, and he found himself still pressed against her, nose buried into the soft scent of her hair, even though he was warm enough under the fur that he didn't really need the added body heat. The taut muscles of her stomach flexed underneath his hand, so he knew she was awake as well. Katniss didn't appear to have any interest in throwing him off her and shoving him out of the bed, as he would have assumed would be the logical conclusion.
It's only awkward if you make it awkward, he reminded himself.
"Are you thinking about District 12 again?" He asked, mumbling into her hair.
"Mmm," she replied, eloquently.
They didn't move for some time; he didn't remove his hand from its possessive hold over her stomach, and she didn't pull away.
"The Seam," she said, after such a long period of time had passed he thought she wouldn't say anything else on the matter. "I was thinking about it—and selling off white rabbits."
"Rabbits?"
"Yeah," she affirmed, quiet. "That I had killed, out in the forest past the fence."
He blinked, warm and comfortable and slow. He hadn't been in Skyrim for very long, but it felt like an eternity. Long enough for him to forget that life isn't like this at all; long enough for him to forget that everything they're doing is abnormal.
"All of that is illegal," he pointed out, surprised that this wasn't his first reaction. His first thought was actually to wonder how she had managed to kill white rabbits without ruining the fur.
"I think I was far too hungry to care about the rules," she replied, wryly.
This gave him pause. Why exactly was she thinking on all this? It didn't sound like random, idle thoughts, crossing through the paths of her consciousness.
It sounded like thoughts and moments and feelings—memories.
It sounded like memories.