let the games begin

[treadswater]

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: Fountain (other locations added as needed)
WHEN: Afternoon, 2nd September - All threads take place before Finnick's
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: Anxiety, panic attack
STATUS: Open

---

Annie doesn't stop to think until she's burst through the surface.

She's been tossed into water before - yes, even fast asleep - and she's from District Four, water is as natural to her as the land. She doesn't waste time on what, where, how, she just swims up. Gasps. Ducks underneath the surface again.

Now she thinks.

She's in a... Pool? No, a fountain, if she swims down and looks up, she can see the central pillar. But how? She knows all the fountains in City One. And that's where she'd been, she'd been in City One, District Four, but she'd been wearing a skirt, a waistcoat, light shoes. Now, Annie twists around in the water and she can see white. White trousers, white shirt. Brown boots. Black straps of a backpack.

It looks like a uniform. A tribute's uniform.

Annie doesn't leave the fountain. Not yet. She takes what breathes she needs, and then swims back down. She's safe in water. She knows how to swim, and this pool is, what, thirty feet across. She can swim and she needs to think.

But thinking doesn't help. Is this the Quarter Quell? Is it? Uniform, a strange entry, but she doesn't remember anything and when she looked out, briefly, it's just a park. There's no Cornucopia. No bloodbath. No screams no weapons no fighting, it's peaceful. But is that part of it? Not Snow's style, she doesn't think, and not Heavensbee. It makes no sense to change everything up, not when the bloodbath is so fucking useful.

But what else is it?

It's then that Annie notices her joints locking up, her chest feeling compressed. P a n i c setting in because no, no, no, no, oh no, she can't do this again, she can't she can't she can't. She can't be in an arena she can't be in the Games she just can't.

Her breath starting to choke her, Annie comes up to the surface again, but she doesn't get out. She doesn't trust herself to run. Instead, she backs up, all the way up against the stone spout in the centre of the fountain. There, she clings to it, and stares out, and tries not to scream.

Comments

[notabirdcostume]

The question throws him off. How do you explain what you don't know? He can tell that what he's said has troubled her somehow. It's probably similar to the way he'd felt when he'd first arrived and people were throwing around terms like "other dimensions" and "magic." That kind of stuff didn't exist after all. And yet...

So how did he explain it to this girl who was still treading water and sounded very lost.

"It's gonna be a lot to explain and most of it is going to probably sound like I'm nuts. But let's start with the part where you are a very long way from home. You've been brought to a place that's a long way from home for all of us and most people are from different places. There are some of us from so far away we haven't even heard of the city or country their from. So, whatever District you're talking about...I'm sorry to say I haven't heard of it. Unless that's a new way of referring to D.C. that I wasn't aware of."

[treadswater]

She doesn't understand the reason for this game. She just doesn't. Why lie? Why make all this up? Why put in people who aren't victors, who claim not to understand? It's a good way for them to get killed - are they prisoners? For some reason left their tongues so they can speak, but then why play along so naturally?

She's not always good at reading people, but she knows fear and this man doesn't seem that afraid.

"What, um. Um. What... Do you mean a long way from home? What distance?

[notabirdcostume]

She just kept on with the difficult questions. Questions Sam had no answer for but that had been plaguing him since he arrived. How did you measure a distance like this? Technically, they could be on Earth--they could be in his home dimension--but it didn't seem likely. Not with all the strange people arriving with so many different kinds of stories that didn't fit within his own understanding of the world, let alone history. That wasn't even getting into the fact that some people were supposedly from the future. You couldn't put that kind of distance in normal miles or kilometers or anything reasonable.

He tries to hide his frustration with the lack of answers. It's certainly not this girl's fault. She just got here.

"Wish I knew. That fountain you're in?" he points, "That's how I got here a few months ago. Woke up not knowing what had happened or where I was...let alone how far away it was from home." He pauses, letting that sink in, before continuing, "It was only after talking to some of the others that I realized this was a long way from home, even if I don't know the exact distance."

[treadswater]

What happens if I kill you?

It's not a nice question, but she's a victor and she's a Career (even if she's a failed one), and this is an arena. Isn't it? Yes, yes. Operate on the assumption that it is, easier to recover from being frightened and suspicious than it is from being dead.

Are you allowed to kill me?

An even more useless question. Most likely. Probably. Truth or lies, she's not good enough to tell, and this is an arena.

Isn't it?

But she has to survive long enough to puzzle out the strangeness, find the rules, find the clues and put them together.

So she rephrases, circles around the question a little. Asks something else just as important.

"What happened to these others?"

[notabirdcostume]

Sam's brow furrowed, trying to figure out why she was asking about the others. Was she concerned? It seemed a strange jump from the previous topics. Sam didn't worry too much about it though and decided to try to answer the best he could.

"They've set up places to stay in the village that's surrounding the fountain you're currently swimming in. We've tired to make a living since we haven't figured out a way out and don't have a lot to go on except to survive." He raised an eyebrow, "Why do you ask?"

[treadswater]

She doesn't care about the frown. No, no she doesn't. She's trying to collect clues and she's odd, everyone knows that, and sometimes it's useful because it means she can do exactly that: jump around the topic. Get information. Get the clues to put them together to form the pattern.

But his answer smashes her patterns, little pieces flying everywhere because what the hell?

"Make a living?" Annie starts, voice rising and sharpening like broken glass. "Why're you doin' that? You're not...

Last one alive wins. That's how the Games work. Why aren't you...

Killing each other?"

[notabirdcostume]

Wow, okay. Now that wasn't something he was expecting to hear. He doesn't even know if he can answer the first question since he's just so thrown off by the "why aren't you killing each other" part. Her voice rising in pitch and cracking isn't reassuring either. He'd heard people at the VA talk like that, people who'd seen and done things that the average American citizen couldn't possibly imagine.

This girl had clearly seen some things, this place was reminding her of that, and it wasn't good.

"This situation isn't a game," he says, but even as he says it he thinks about some of the situations that had come about. He could be wrong about it being a game. But they didn't know it was either. Also, it's probably not the best idea to consider ideas from a girl freaking out in a fountain.

He shakes his head and adds, "The point is...we can't survive to get out of here if we kill each other. Why would we even do that?"

[treadswater]

"Because that's how you survive," Annie says, staring at him with dark eyes that (too) wide and (too) intense. "Make alliances, yes. But the only way to get out is if you're the last one standing. And, they."

They don't like it if you win by endurance too often. Makes them seem cruel. Makes them seem boring. Misses the point of aren't we all just brutes out there in the districts.

"It's the way with, the. The. The, um, highest probability of working."

But this man is so confused, and she's starting to get chilled, that Annie decides to be brave and try something.

"You, uh. Don't intend on killing me?"

[notabirdcostume]

Sam is now very confused but also worried. She speaks like she's been in a situation too similar to this one. However, she'd just arrived in the fountain. So how could that be possible? "I don't...I don't think that's what's going on here. We can survive together. Why does there need to be a last one standing?"

He doesn't hesitate at her question though. He makes sure to look straight at her and keep his tone even as he says, "I'm not going to kill you."

[treadswater]

She gapes at him. He asks in such honest-seeming confusion, but that's against the rules. That's what's sparked this revolution. This is what causes a stubborn girl from District 12 to save her partner and send the country up in smoke. Smoke from bombs, as the Capitol tries to maintain control.

And here this man is, sounding all reasonable and confused. That, more than anything, makes Annie resolve to get out of the fountain.

"Okay," she repeats, once she's able to. "Just. Just stay there, though."

Like she has anything resembling leverage. But, keeping her eyes mostly on him (mostly, but still flicking around to see if there's an ambush) she swims back, back, back until she bumps into the edge of the fountain and hauls herself out.

Standing on the ground, she's a small woman, barely five foot and perfectly proportioned for that height. Curly red hair drying on top, still sopping wet from where it'd stayed in the water. She stands for balance, feet apart, and her expression is wary.

[notabirdcostume]

Sam never considers going against the request. He's not sure what to make of the look she just gave him -- like HE was the crazy one. But, he only nods, holding up his hands in a show of surrender again and making a point of not moving an inch aside from that, "All right."

He then waits patiently, relieved that she is finally climbing out of the fountain. Now, while he doesn't move he does watch her closely. He's not a complete idiot and just because he's agreed not to hurt or kill her doesn't mean she won't turn on him when she gets out of the fountain. He realizes it seems unlikely, but this place had thrown him for enough loops. Her talk of people murdering each other in a similar setting has him a little nervous now, but he does his best to appear as laid back as usual. He feels in his gut that it's unlikely she'll try anything. She seems too out of it, but he also isn't going to let himself be caught unawares either.

Sam goes for light-hearted, it's what he's good at, "So you do have legs. I was starting to wonder if you were part fish with the way you were hanging out in the fountain."