She could lift her sword, if she was being completely honest with herself. She couldn’t lift it well and she couldn’t lift it for a long period of time, but she was not so crippled that she couldn’t at least lift the weapon. Swinging it, as well, was something she could still do, despite her frequent and vocal protests to the contrary; even Beth, who stayed permanently in the house with her now, was trying to helpfully demonstrate how easy it was to lift--and Beth was a small woman, never having fought before in her life. It wasn’t that Cat didn’t appreciate the effort. It was simply that she was safer this way.
Cat hadn’t sought out safety in a very long time. She’d liked the uncertainty of the road, the wildness in a camp, taking risks. She still liked the outdoors and sleeping tucked beneath the stars or under someone else’s arm. There hadn’t been any weight to it when she was a child, and she missed that, missed being able to tangle up with someone else because it was cold enough to frost but she was too stubborn to go inside, missed waking up in a mass of limbs and blankets and not having done anything, not feeling like she should have done something, not always feeling like she was going to die.
Beth took her camping a few times. They’d set up a makeshift tent in the backyard, sheets thrown over the branches of the low-hanging trees, and laid there and counted the stars until Mina or Beth fell asleep first. If it was Mina, Cat and Beth would lie there in silence and think about the things neither of them dared to speak of: the nights Cat almost died, or the night Archet burned. The nights they both lost everything. So they would talk in whispers about anything and everything else--about which of the men in the Dawn were single and who was attractive and who probably had nothing to bring to the table (all in jest, as Cat could see the hole in Beth’s heart; there would be no one else after Richard), about Mina accidentally repeating words she shouldn’t have even heard yet (neither of them mention that it’s from Cat, when she wakes up screaming in the night), about Cat’s rendezvous with men she refuses to name. They laugh and say they need to do that more often, lie beneath the stars and talk about life, but in the morning when Cat’s back is so stiff that she can hardly stand, the enthusiasm is long gone. They were only a few months apart in age, but even Beth would admit that Cat had ten years on her easily. They both pretended that it didn’t mean Cat would die before her.
But on the rare nights that it’s Beth who falls asleep before Mina, Cat pulls her daughter into her lap and tells her stories. They’re all half-true, of course, because Cat’s never been that creative of a liar, and they’re all about the stars. Stars are just the people you’ve lost looking down at you, she says, pointing at one and claiming that it’s her husband--dead or alive, he’s lost to her now. Mina always turns and looks at her with shiny blonde curls and green eyes that are a mirror of Cat’s own, and she’s not good with her words yet, but Cat knows what she’s trying to ask, and she insists that it’s true. If it’s not true, why would there be so many stars?
Cat doesn’t teach her the names of the stars supposedly watching over her, only vague, hand-waving descriptions. Anelore, Deordal, Zurich--the stories are too complex to explain to Mina at five, and too personal to even think about explain to her when she got older. She and Beth argue when, one night after Cat had fallen asleep, Beth taught Mina about Richard and a little boy named Sam who would have been three years older than Mina that year. In the end, it was Cat who swallowed her pride and apologized. If the situation was reversed, if it had been her husband and son killed in the attack on Archet, she’d have done the same.
Beth asked her that night, as they dressed for bed, if she really believed what she said about the stars. Cat was silent for a long time before she answered, her lips pursed, that there was no reason for her not to believe what she said. In the time she’d been telling the story to Mina, it had slowly started to become less a story for a child and more a real conviction to her. There was no evidence to believe that the stars weren’t protective spirits. Beth had nodded along. It was a good belief, she said, a good story.
After that, talking to the stars became commonplace in their home. Cat had never been shy about it, especially when she was upset. Mina learned her words that way, sitting in her mother’s lap in the upstairs window, and speaking to the stars in turn; father, aunt, friend, uncle. But Beth is quieter about it. Cat listens in sometimes, when Beth crawls out of bed in the middle of the night and lights a low candle to sit in the hall window and whisper to Richard that they’re both alright and that he better be taking care of Sam for her. Cat forgets sometimes, as quietly as Beth cries, that she has nightmares as well. Beth saw their home burn. She saw her family and friends slaughtered. And still, Cat realizes with a pang of guilt, she hides her own feelings to look after her and Mina.
She works harder then to get herself back into fighting shape. She’ll never be like she was before the attack, and she knows that. Yet even she can see the relief in Beth’s face when she takes up the practice sword in the backyard again. Cat struggles with the broadsword and, when she is too tired to continue with that, she coaches Beth through throwing punches and wielding a knife, despite Beth’s protests. Talking to the stars is nice at night and when things are peaceful. But stars, when things inevitably grow rough again (both women are magnets for trouble), will not fall from the sky to protect the small, strange family. They’ll do that themselves. She seeks out safety, still, and finds it again in the motion of a blade.
