The Job Not Taken // [ Mace + Grace ]

grace felton

Time and work beaten hands grasp the handles to buckets as she makes her way to the trough. The herd stands nearby, mooing as they bend down to grasp at another piece of grass. Stupid cows. They never really do anything, do they? They just stand there acting all cute and innocent but when you want to milk them they either kick the bucket over or whine about it.

The girl isn't one to pity her life as she swings her arms, the water splashing down into the sun-warmed trough.

Reclining on the side of a fence post nearby, Grace watches some of the cows idly waddle up to the trough, taking a few sips before going back to mooing their idiotic sounds and fart their loud and deadly farts.

Her wide-brimmed hat shades her eyes from the ever warming sun. The thoughts in her head were slow and sluggish just like everything else in this heat. She started wishing she was in the market selling goods with her parents right now, but then she remember wishing wasn't much good because then no one would be there to tend to the cows?

Her eyes travel down the nearby road at the approaching sound of a horse's trotting feet.
Her parents couldn't have been home so early, so who was it?

Her eyes, hidden by the brim of her hat narrow at the sight of the stranger for a moment.
He seemed familiar somehow. She didn't keep up with the damn games or whatever was happening at the moment with 'elections.' The harder she tried to recall what name she might have heard in the corner of her eyesight previously the harder it was to recall.

He nears her, pulling his large horse to a stop in front of her.

"Miss Felton, how do you do?" He tips his hat to me and she bends hers in return, but ever so slightly. She had no idea who this man was and he comes up to her with her name.
Strangers who know you are never a good thing.

"Might I trouble you for some water?" He continues.

In her mind she thinks he looks like somebody splashed a model posing on some Capitol trash show with too much make up and a cowboy hat just to make him seem like a cowboy from around these parts. It all seemed so... fake, though.

"No problem." She says in her drawled voice, the kind of voice she would hear coming from one of those cowboys in a cartoon the capitol would air from time to time. She would always wonder as a kid why they have her voice up on the television.

She moves fluidly into the house to fill a cup before bringing it back to the strange man on the horse. The caution apparent in her eyes as she reached up to hand him the cup.

"What brings ya all the way out here?" She asks inquisitorially as a cow undramatically moos behind her ear, causing her to jump, ruining the appearance of adultishness she was trying to muster.

"Damn cow," She mutters under her breath.