Glad you liked the last prompt, quick question do these have to be canon or canon divergent prompts?
Katniss whilst not knowing why, takes the hungry black kitten home along with its golden puppy friend, why the reformed hob has an adoption centre is beyond her. But it turns out her heart didn't just grow fonder for Peeta
Hey! These can be canon, canon divergent or AU. I write them all :)
This is such a CUTE little prompt! I hope I've done it justice.
I went to the Hob for sewing needles, not a half-starved kitten with a death glare and a golden puppy that tried to lick my face off. This is what I get for refusing to part with my favorite pair of hunting pants.
Sure, it would’ve been easy to just order a new pair of pants, but old habits die hard, and I was hell-bent on fixing the pair I already had. Waste not, want not, my mother always said. I just needed the needles, now here I am walking home carrying a screaming onyx ball of fluff and his happy golden companion as she trots next to me.
The Hob is sort of a community hub since the war ended, hosting events for anything from needlework to the pet parade; which I didn’t realize was today.
As soon as I walked in, that golden puppy hopped toward me like she was walking on hot coals and insisted I pay attention to her. Close behind was this sad looking little ball, its tiny tail sticking straight up as it ambled behind his golden friend.
“Looks like you’ve got some friends,” Greasy Sae observed as she filled a metal bowl with some sort of slop and set it down in a meowing box. “Those two are a package deal, though. If you want one, you gotta take both.”
“I don’t want to take either one,” I said defensively. “I don’t do pets.”
But then I kept watching them. That golden pup picking up her toy and trying to share it with the kitten even though the toy was bigger than the pups friend. Then the kicker, the moment that sealed the deal, when the puppy found a patch of sun leaking in through the window and curled up and that kitten immediately flocking to the pup to curl up with her.
“Package deal, you say?” I asked, kneeling down in front of the two unlikely friends. “How much for them?”
“Take ‘em both, and they’re yours,” Greasy Sae said.
It was then that the little golden lady leapt up and started licking my face. Surprisingly strong for only a couple of months old, she knocked me down and took up residence on my chest as her little friend toddled our way. I sat up, the little pup moving to my lap, and scooped up the kitten.
“Well,” I said, observing the scowl that the kitten had painted on his little face. “You’re not as ugly as Buttercup. And he can teach you to hunt.”
Now, I’m walking home with a kitten in my coat and the bounciest puppy I’ve ever seen right on my heels. I barely get the door open before the puppy wriggles inside like she owns the place, her nails skittering against the floorboard as her tail sweeps everything in her path.
Peeta looks out from the kitchen, flour smudged on his cheek and a towel slung over one shoulder.
“Katniss,” he says slowly, his eyes drifting from me to the animals and back again. “Did you—”
“They followed me,” I said, before he could finish.
“They followed you?” He repeats skeptically. “Is that why the kitten is wrapped up in your jacket? “Besides, I know it’s the pet parade and the Hob today.”
“Okay, fine,” I grind out, setting the kitten on the floor. He’s immediately distracted by a dust mote. “There was something about them. I couldn’t leave them there.”
Peeta crouches down as the puppy launches herself at his feet and the kitten, now intrigued with Peeta, circles suspiciously.
“So much for not doing any more pets,” Peeta says with a laugh as the puppy stands on her hind legs and licks his cheek.
Once recovered, Peeta sets down two mismatched bowls filled with leftover deer and crouches next to the animals as they tear into dinner like they haven’t eaten in days. I lean against the doorway, arms crossed, pretending I’m not smiling at the three of them.
“So,” Peeta says, glancing over his shoulder. “What are you calling them?”
“I’m not planning to name them,” I reply. “They’ll just get attached.”
Peeta raises an eyebrow. “I think you’re already attached.”
The golden puppy sits back on her haunches, tongue lolling, her tail thudding against the floor like a drumbeat. Her ears are too big for her head.
“She’s ridiculous,” I mutter. “Like a marigold growing in cement.”
“Marigold it is,” Peeta says with a grin.
The kitten, still chewing dramatically on a scrap of meat, pauses to shoot a venomous glare in our direction.
“What about him?” Peeta asks.
“Ash,” I reply easily as I study the little menace.
“Because he’s black?” Peeta asks, tilting his head.
“Because he’s what's left after the fire,” I say, then frown. “That came out darker than I meant.”
Peeta gives me a look that says, you’re incorrigible, but he doesn’t push it.
“Ash and Marigold,” he repeats. “Package deal.”
Later that night, the fire burns low, the sound of embers popping the only thing you can hear above Marigold’s snoring and occasional tail thumping, her head resting against Peeta’s foot. Ash is curled up like a comma between Marigold’s front paws, cocooned like he’s got the best protector in the world. Peeta hasn’t moved in an hour, careful not to disturb them.
I watch him in the dim light, his hand resting lightly on my thigh, the corner of his mouth tilted in that near-smile he wears when he thinks no one is looking.
“You’re good at this,” I murmur.
“At what?” he asks, his eyes soft and brilliant in the firelight.
Peeta doesn’t answer, just reaches out and brushes his fingers over my thigh, grounding and warm.
I let the warmth of the room wrap around us, and the quiet settles into something comfortable and steady. My hand finds Peeta’s without thinking, fingers brushing against his. The world outside might still be fractured, but in this little house, with Ash and Marigold curled up beside us, it feels whole. For the first time in a long time, I don’t think either of us feels lost.
