🎃👻 trick or treat 👻🎃
Happy Halloween!! Thanks for stopping by: Have some candy!!🍬🍭🍫
And as a treat: a new addition to Forts!
The scraggly old apple tree behind the bakery had been easy maintenance. Situated at the edge of the pig pen, most of the leaves and spoiled apples fell inside where they didn’t need fussing over. But the homes in Victor's Village each have several very old, very large trees. They’re beautiful in the spring when they bud, bits of green slowly seeping from the ends of once barren branches. When the season changes, their boughs are a shady reprieve from the summer sun. Then in the Fall, the green catches into a blaze of yellows, reds and oranges, until burning out to a warm brown that carpets the ground. That’s when the raking begins.
It isn’t bad work: mindless and repetitive. The kind of task Peeta can daydream to. His companion’s soft humming doesn’t hurt either.
He’s admiring their pile and contemplating how many wheelbarrow trips it will take to dispose of them all, when the loud honk of a goose startles him from his musings. He pivots towards the noise, his foot slipping on a spot of mud their efforts had unearthed, and tumbles to the ground, his fall cushioned by the leaves. He looks over to see the offending fowl staring at him, unphased by the commotion it’s caused, before waddling off.
He would prefer not to have fallen, but it’s not so bad down here. Though the air is cool, he’s warm and there’s a rewarding ache in his muscles from his leaf clearing exertions. “I’m alright,” he chuckles up to the sky, anticipating Katniss’s worry as she reaches his side.
She frowns down at him in concern, “you sure?”
That solemn look won’t do, so he extends his hand towards her and when she grasps hold, he gently tugs her forward until she collapses in the pile next to him.
“whoops,” he smiles mischievously.
Her look of surprise vanishes at his words and she scoops up a handful of leaves tossing them haphazardly in his direction. They both pop up, playfully taunting and grabbing fistfuls of debris, the air soon buzzing with leaf confetti and laughter.
