A Mouse Tail: Warm Hearts & Nose Kisses
I’m working on finishing this for you birthday, though I might not succeed before the end of the day. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy these snippets. I hope you’ve had a lovely day!
Snippets of Chapter Three (working title, either The Date or True Love, depending on whether I add one more chapter or not):
I do not know why Katniss has agreed to go on a date with me‒me, a cursed man who turned up naked in her bedroom claiming to have been her pet mouse–but I’m counting my lucky stars. It takes a special kind of person to break the spell cast upon me, and to believe such a fantastical tale as I told her, but I always knew Katniss Everdeen was extraordinary. In my wildest dreams I never expected any of this to transpire.
While my fate seemed sealed, things are definitely looking up. Time may not be on my side, but apparently, magic is. I now have a fairy godfather watching over me, and he has agreed to help me win Katniss’s heart. Or, at the very least, dress me for the part. Naturally, I was skeptical of Cinna at first‒and why shouldn’t I be after what I’ve experienced? But thus far, Cinna has proven himself to be a benevolent entity. The second part of my stepmother’s curse, earning the love of my fair maiden, will be far more difficult than procuring a kiss from her in mouse form, and so I can use all the help I can get.
***
Exhausted from transforming from a tiny mouse back into myself and fuzzy-headed over my encounter with Cinna, I finally return home. I’ve been away for what feels so long, and like all voyagers, I half-expect home to look different, somehow. But it doesn't. It’s exactly the same.
I stumble up the steps of the bakery on my still wobbly legs (my bad leg is particularly bothering me), and I’m unsure what I’ll find. Has my stepmother really gone?
I’m surprised to find my father up at this hour; he’s seated at the kitchen table, his shoulders hunched. He looks up wearily as I enter, and I swear his jaw drops to the table.
“Hello, father,” I croak, tears welling up in my eyes. It feels like forever since I’ve looked upon him as myself. He appears so much smaller...
Well, of course he does, fool, I tell myself. You were seeing him through the eyes of a rodent!
“Peeta?” he repeats my name as a question, his strong jaw quivering, his own blue eyes filling up with tears. My father was never a man who couldn’t cry; although, he rarely did.
He stands up suddenly, knocking his chair over in the process. It clatters against the floor. Before I can blink, he’s wrapping his arms around me in a fierce bear hug. I hug him back and let him sob against my shoulder. I’m crying, too, now. I’m sure he’ll have many questions for me once our emotional reunion is finished, but for now, I simply stay in his arms.
