--- Kat --- 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Kat didn’t end up having the best sleep. While she wasn’t plagued with nightmares or an overabundance of worry for Lily... she was still on edge. After the break in earlier in the week and the fighting the previous night Kat’s body had apparently decided to be on the lookout for threats. Worse, it was using her hearing properly and the city was not a calm one that day. The announcement of what was going on had officially gone out and people were certainly having opinions.

Kat woke up more than once to the sound of a loud crash or the sound of fighting. None of them truly close to the house, but close enough to be identified as a problem and to wake Kat from her slumber. Kat was lucky she didn’t need too much sleep otherwise waking so often would’ve been unbearable. Lily proved how tired she was by sleeping through all of this, even Kat’s own regular awakenings.

When Kat did eventually wake up, the fake sun was already starting to dip down beneath the horizon. Kat was tempted to go back to sleep, as it had been another round of screaming in the streets that had woken her... but Kat, alongside everyone else, was meant to check in with the warehouse crew to see if the enchantments had been finished up for the node. If the answer was ’no’ then more guarding, if the answer was ’yes’ then Kat would still be needed to place it down. Though technically it was Hedera or Lily that would be doing that part.

"Time to wake up," Kat whispered near Lily’s ear. During the night Lily hadn’t moved all that much. Her arms were still firmly wrapped around Kat’s waist. Even if Lily had relaxed somewhat, her grip on Kat had barely loosened. In addition to that, Lily’s tail had wrapped around Kat’s own at some point and her legs and wrapped around one of Kat’s own. There was no way to escape without waking Lily.

Which wasn’t a problem. Kat was perfectly willing to do so. Her light whispering was intended to make the experience more pleasant for Lily after everything that had happened... but that didn’t mean Kat was content to lie there for longer than she had to. Kat gave Lily a kiss and tried to gently wake her up for a few moments longer... but when that failed Kat started to pull Lily’s arms off her.

Originally, this was to attempt to get up and pull off the covers, or perhaps find some water to wake her girlfriend with... but Kat’s attempts to remove Lily were stymied. Kat’s gentle attempts at unwrapping herself from her girlfriend were met by increased resistance from Lily. Even as Kat tried to use more and more power, she found she couldn’t actually get Lily’s arms off.

*Hahahaha. This limiter has actually found a non-annoying use for itself. It’s interesting being on this side of things. Now the question is... do I want to just transform into water? Lily would pull her arms right through my watery body, probably soaking herself in the same moment. A bit of a rude way to wake up... but I was probably going to slowly drip water on her face anyway.

Dream smoke is also an option... but I don’t want to get stuck in a nightmare. Lily might seem somewhat calm right now but the death grip she has on me says otherwise. I suppose I also have to work out how long I want to avoid the water trick. I don’t know what exactly the time is, but I think I’ve got an hour and a bit before it becomes a problem. Though we probably want to make sure there’s time to eat. I’ll need to wake Hedera up as well, because I can faintly hear her sleeping in the other room if I concentrate.*

Kat decided that, for now, she could amuse herself with trying to wake Lily up. Tickling was the first port of call. A few breathes of air on Lily’s ears, some actual tickling on her stomach. A few attempts at tickling Lily’s neck or under her armpits... and nothing. Nothing worked. Kat wondered if Lily’s feet would make for more effective targets but simply bending down could wake her and that wasn’t any fun... unless?

Kat decided to test it and found Lily really wasn’t giving up. She was still firmly asleep and no amount of silly things involving Lily’s feet worked. Not tickling, not wiggling her toes around, and poking at her achilleas tendon yielded no reaction at all from the sleeping cat girl. Throwing the covers off at this point didn’t change anything, and Kat was even able to do a lap around the room with Lily just hanging off her. Kat was a little surprised Lily remained in place during that, but considering how tight Lily’s grip on her stomach was... perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

Kat lay back down on the bed, and that caused at least SOME reaction. Lily shuffled around a little bit to get comfortable again but didn’t seem to wake Lily at all. Kat then switched to singing various silly songs for a few minutes. Mostly just limiting herself to the chorus. Why? Kat thought it was funny of course. Even though nothing was waking Lily up, her girlfriend did seem to have gained a smile on her face. Something Kat now shared. Their worries weren’t gone, but it was nice still.

The temptation to break out the big guns, also known as the water, was growing stronger but Kat resisted. First, she decided to poke Lily’s face a bit. Squished her cheeks, poked at her stomach, legs, arms. Kat tried to get under Lily’s fingers at one point but that wasn’t happening. Eventually Kat even escalated to pinching Lily’s cheeks and pulling them a bit like she was a cartoon grandmother. Lily actually reacted to that last one. Not be waking up but by shifting a bit and biting into Kat’s hand in response.

It didn’t hurt. Lily wasn’t biting down all that hard, especially not compared to the amount of force she was using to hold Kat with her hands... but it was sort of funny to see the reaction at all. Lily’s cheeks were still being pulled after all, and now she had most of Kat’s thumb in her mouth. Kat burst into laughter at the scene, letting her girlfriend go.

As amusing as it was though... it probably meant that Kat should get serious. So, converting a finger into water and then pushing a bunch of demonic energy into it, Kat created a stream of water that blasted into Lily’s face like a water gun. Soon her girlfriend was awake and spluttering, though how much of that was the water itself and how much was that Kat might not have kept it aimed away from Lily’s nose... well that was definitely a mystery.

When Lily recovered she decided that instead of finally releasing her hands from around Kat to wipe her face... she’d rather just use the pillow as a towel. Lily wiped her face off just by moving her face around a bit before yawning and turning back to Kat. "Good morning... why did you do that?"

"Funny story..." said Kat as she sent the last few minutes of her activities into Lily’s mind. Causing her girlfriend to blush deeply.

"Was... was... I mean... really? I was that bad..." asked Lily.

"Your hands are still trying to crush my ribs," said Kat, a little surprised she could. Though... Lily was trying, just without a chance at succeeding.

"Ah," mumbled Lily as she glanced down to see that Kat was telling the truth. "I’m a little surprised my muscles haven’t given up if I’ve really been holding you like this all night... err... day?"

Kat flicked her memories of the various times she’d woken up to noises since trying to sleep in Lily’s mental direction. "Ah..." Lily mumbled once again, with a deeper wince this time. "Sorry..."

Kat shrugged, "It’s not like it hurts. I find it super cute after all. I’m a little more worried about what I would’ve done if there was an actual problem. You were pretty out of it and I’m not sure how you would’ve reacted to my first thought of transforming into water to get away."

"Ah," mumbled Lily.

"Really? Three a row?" cut in Kat before Lily could continue.

Lily, taking a queue from her sleeping self, bit down on Kat’s cheek for cutting in before pulling away. "Well sorry if I’m still half asleep. I... I don’t know. I’d like to say I’d have woken up if there was really an issue but after seeing all of that I’m not too sure. I also know I would’ve really freaked out if you vanished from my arms while I was waking up. Especially seeing as I still can’t bring myself to let go..."

"Well, eventually we’re going to need to get up in order to actually eat and not be late for out meeting. Probably should get Hedera up sooner than that so she can shower as well and stuff," suggested Kat.

"Maybe but... just... just let me stay here a bit longer now I’m awake," sighed Lily.