Annie Cresta | Victor of the 70th Hunger Games (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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sixthiterationlogs2018-02-04 11:20 am
treadswater) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2018-02-04 11:20 am
theoretically, there's plenty of fish in the sea - OTA
WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: Various
WHEN: 2nd - 19th February
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: TBA as needed
Today, Annie has decided to pitch in at the daily meal-making activities at the Inn. The river has been teaming with fish, and fish is on the menu, and she knows her sociability is inconsistent at best which is... Well, it's not good. She holds to that. Things change here, and she needs not to be an all too convenient outsider if the Gamemakers spice up the arena. Like with more of those awful notes, upping the stakes. It's all too easy to go from 'hurt' to 'kill'-
And it's while she's thinking down that path that her hand slips, the knife slips, and while she's gutting a fish the knife slices into her hand.
"Ow! Fuck," Annie hisses, dropping the knife and jerking her hands away. It's not so much the pain, but she knows the rates of infection in arenas (and, honestly, the docks). And blood is so inconvenient. Except, before she moves away from the table to wash her hands, she stops. Stares.
Spilling out of the fish is something that shouldn't there. Something cylindrical and red.
Holding her injured hand in the air to keep it out of the way, Annie pokes at the red thing with her knife and flicks it out of the fish. It looks like a scroll.
"Um," she starts, looking up and around at her fellow volunteers. "Could someone unroll this for me?"
It's not that she and Finnick are catching no fish. They are catching fish, just as normal. It's that just as normal is the problem. They shouldn't be. They should be catching so much fish, the village would be running out of salt and firewood to preserve them. Everyone should be eating so much, they'd stage a protest. No more fish, they'd say, even though being sick of something is better than starving.
(Is that what that stupid scroll meant? Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else’s water lily, as if that means anything. It's probably just something to annoy her.
If so, it is working.)
Instead, she and Finnick aren't catching huge numbers of fish. It is Day Three of the river turned silver with fish and moving water, and Day Three of the nets and traps bringing in a perfectly ordinary.
"I don't understand," Annie says once the last net has been cleared and the fish put away into baskets. "We should be drowning in the damn things. All of our gear can't have holes in 'em, or bung lids. Right?"
She looks at her husband helplessly, foreseeing a lot of frustrating repairs in her future and not liking it a single bit.
For the next two weeks, the normally somewhat reclusive Annie is far more obvious. When she walks her birds in the mid-mornings and mid-afternoons, there is a degree of stomping to her boots more often than not. The cast of her face is grumpy, particularly whenever she regards the river. Occasionally, she mutters theories and obscenities to herself when glaring at the teaming water. It's a dramatic sulk for a woman prone to second and third guessing her social interactions, but Annie doesn't care. It's insulting, is what it is. All those fish.
Not that she indulges so much in her sulk that she forgets to be practical, however.
Her walks with her increasingly confused birds often take her to the river, where she harvests reeds and checks on the traps - traps which, inevitably, have a perfectly serviceable amount of
catch and not the feast swimming around. Still, it all needs to be checked and taken in, as normal.
Most days, Annie can be found outside House 57. Sometimes she is engaged in the normal upkeep of her fence and gate, while her geese and peafowl keep her company, but normal her focus is repairs. The nets she and Finnick have woven and use are strung up between trees as she goes over them, row by row, fixing any rips and tears. It pays to do this anyway, but now... Well, now, she's trying to see if the fish are escaping due to a fault in the equipment.
Occasionally, she swears like the deckhand she once was. The cause? either the net is perfectly fine (more common), or there are obnoxiously large tears (rare, yet obnoxious).
She has enough self-awareness to know she's being ridiculous, but for once, she doesn't care. The whole situation is annoying her, and it's nice to indulgence in annoyance rather than fear.
As far as everyone else in the village is concerned, with Annie's annoyance holding back her nerves more often than not, it's far easier to get more than two words out of her should one strike up a conversation. Just be prepared for a certain amount of glowering if she talks about the fishing.
WHERE: Various
WHEN: 2nd - 19th February
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: TBA as needed
The Inn, 2nd February
OTA
Today, Annie has decided to pitch in at the daily meal-making activities at the Inn. The river has been teaming with fish, and fish is on the menu, and she knows her sociability is inconsistent at best which is... Well, it's not good. She holds to that. Things change here, and she needs not to be an all too convenient outsider if the Gamemakers spice up the arena. Like with more of those awful notes, upping the stakes. It's all too easy to go from 'hurt' to 'kill'-
And it's while she's thinking down that path that her hand slips, the knife slips, and while she's gutting a fish the knife slices into her hand.
"Ow! Fuck," Annie hisses, dropping the knife and jerking her hands away. It's not so much the pain, but she knows the rates of infection in arenas (and, honestly, the docks). And blood is so inconvenient. Except, before she moves away from the table to wash her hands, she stops. Stares.
Spilling out of the fish is something that shouldn't there. Something cylindrical and red.
Holding her injured hand in the air to keep it out of the way, Annie pokes at the red thing with her knife and flicks it out of the fish. It looks like a scroll.
"Um," she starts, looking up and around at her fellow volunteers. "Could someone unroll this for me?"
By the river; 3rd February
Closed: Finnick
It's not that she and Finnick are catching no fish. They are catching fish, just as normal. It's that just as normal is the problem. They shouldn't be. They should be catching so much fish, the village would be running out of salt and firewood to preserve them. Everyone should be eating so much, they'd stage a protest. No more fish, they'd say, even though being sick of something is better than starving.
(Is that what that stupid scroll meant? Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else’s water lily, as if that means anything. It's probably just something to annoy her.
If so, it is working.)
Instead, she and Finnick aren't catching huge numbers of fish. It is Day Three of the river turned silver with fish and moving water, and Day Three of the nets and traps bringing in a perfectly ordinary.
"I don't understand," Annie says once the last net has been cleared and the fish put away into baskets. "We should be drowning in the damn things. All of our gear can't have holes in 'em, or bung lids. Right?"
She looks at her husband helplessly, foreseeing a lot of frustrating repairs in her future and not liking it a single bit.
Various locations around the village: 4th-19th
OTA
For the next two weeks, the normally somewhat reclusive Annie is far more obvious. When she walks her birds in the mid-mornings and mid-afternoons, there is a degree of stomping to her boots more often than not. The cast of her face is grumpy, particularly whenever she regards the river. Occasionally, she mutters theories and obscenities to herself when glaring at the teaming water. It's a dramatic sulk for a woman prone to second and third guessing her social interactions, but Annie doesn't care. It's insulting, is what it is. All those fish.
Not that she indulges so much in her sulk that she forgets to be practical, however.
Her walks with her increasingly confused birds often take her to the river, where she harvests reeds and checks on the traps - traps which, inevitably, have a perfectly serviceable amount of
catch and not the feast swimming around. Still, it all needs to be checked and taken in, as normal.
Most days, Annie can be found outside House 57. Sometimes she is engaged in the normal upkeep of her fence and gate, while her geese and peafowl keep her company, but normal her focus is repairs. The nets she and Finnick have woven and use are strung up between trees as she goes over them, row by row, fixing any rips and tears. It pays to do this anyway, but now... Well, now, she's trying to see if the fish are escaping due to a fault in the equipment.
Occasionally, she swears like the deckhand she once was. The cause? either the net is perfectly fine (more common), or there are obnoxiously large tears (rare, yet obnoxious).
She has enough self-awareness to know she's being ridiculous, but for once, she doesn't care. The whole situation is annoying her, and it's nice to indulgence in annoyance rather than fear.
As far as everyone else in the village is concerned, with Annie's annoyance holding back her nerves more often than not, it's far easier to get more than two words out of her should one strike up a conversation. Just be prepared for a certain amount of glowering if she talks about the fishing.
BY THE RIVER
Finnick drops the basket he's holding back onto the ground, where it will sit a while until they're ready to leave and make their rounds to the Inn, their friends, and home.
"We check them often enough," he says, shaking his head. And he'd adjusted the placement of the traps for the river currents based on the suggestion Moana had made last time he'd had problems with them.
He steps over towards the riverbank, looking down at the water that, despite it still being wintry weather, is gleaming with the glint of pale sunlight over the silvery scales of easily dozens of fish.
"Could they be an illusion?"
Maybe it's a stupid thing to say, especially since he'd managed to snatch one out of the water with his bare hands the first day they'd appeared, but maybe that was one of the normal fish, since it's hardly possible to tell which belong to the suddenly increased population and which are the ones that have only been there a few days.
no subject
"Maybe we should-" she stops at the word stab, "um, spear them. Or go swimmin', illusions wouldn't stand up to a spear. Right?"
Her voice lilts up at 'right', as if it's a question, but her hand is already moving towards one of the fishing spears and her eyes are determined.
no subject
Annie's suggestion, though, is a distraction from that thought, and a cooler, more logical suggestion. The spear is a better weapon for fishing, better to control, and a weapon they're both experienced with.
"They shouldn't."
He stays crouched by the water, but Finnick looks over his shoulder back up at his wife and nods.
"Go for it. I want to see what happens if you spear one."
no subject
Which she has to admit is useful right now, as stabbing fish with a spear is exactly what she feels like doing. They are being illusive in ways that simply aren't natural.
Annie balances at the river bank, and there's no point in waiting for the waters to clear because they are teaming with fish. Instead she waits, breathes out, and moves the spear with quicksilver speed.
Nothing's on the tip. She'd aimed straight and nothing, not even a bump as fish crash into it.
no subject
His attention follows Annie, and when she takes up position by the river, he leans forward, one hand resting on a rock to keep himself steady, and he stares at the water in front of Annie's spearpoint.
"Did they move out of the way?"
It had seemed that way, even though he was watching so intently. There'd been a ripple in the swarming silver in the water, as though Annie's spear had made the fish all swim away, but barely perceptibly, not the way that fish usually scatter in panicked instinct as the spearpoint comes slicing into the water, panicked but too slow for one of the fish. That's how it's supposed to be, but Annie got nothing.
That is enough to make Finnick pull out his knife. He leans closer to the water, crouched on the bank with his eye on his target.
"Watch what happens," he says as he lunges forward, stabbing deep into the water, so deep he almost loses his balance.
No fish.
no subject
"Same thing," she says, carefully. "They moved, but not panicked? Like they were just getting out of the way 'stead of fleeing. And, you've got good aim."
The pair repeat the exercise, five times each other. Three fish wind up being taken, two to Annie and one to Finnick, but that is nothing like what it should be.
"What," Annie says, even more carefully than before, "the hell."
no subject
He shakes his head and looks back at Annie, then pushes himself up from the riverbank.
"Mutts with extra good reflexes?" He sounds uncertain in the suggestion, and he is; it doesn't sound good even as he voices it.
He'd gotten splashed by the icy river water stabbing at the fish, and it's too cold to keep his wet shirt on. He steps back towards his pack and digs into it for the spare clothes he's learned to carry when it's cold and he's fishing.
Finnick pulls off his wet shirt and tugs on a sweater.
"They should have been startled by us."
no subject
Maybe later, she'll seduce him. That could be a fun way to spend the afternoon, provided she's not too annoyed by whatever this is.
Which she is. Increasingly, very annoyed. She usually gets this way when things mess with fish supplies and quotas.
"Do... Do you think they're actually there? The fish, I mean. Maybe it's all a holograph."
no subject
He digs in his pack again and pulls a pair of gloves out, pulling them onto his hands and then crossing his arms across his chest for the warmth.
He really, really hates winter in this place.
"Holograph wouldn't need to move out of the way, would it? Could just let the spear go right through it."
His voice is a little uncertain, though, in a way he tries to avoid around anyone here but Annie or Johanna. "Unless that's part of the illusion."
no subject
Finnick keeps talking, and when he's done she moves her hand: maybe, yes, the gesture says.
"Animals don't react like that when they're startled. Not even fish. There's, there's more thrashing around and panic as they react. This was more, um. Controlled.
But, then, I don't know how illusions would have sensors, unless there are receptors around and it's controlled that way."
OTA
Settled on her porch with one foot against the railing, she's sipping a spiked juice (some of her more potent poison plants watered down) when she sees Annie coming back. The hallucinogenic properties haven't exactly kicked in yet, so she feels like she's got at least a decent amount of conversation in her. "Oh, come on, Annie, what did those geese ever do to you? I thought I was the one who wanted to have them for dinner," she deadpans, when she comes back from a walk and looks more than a little annoyed.
no subject
"My geese are perfect," she says. They aren't. She even knows they aren't. But they aren't what is pissing her off, either.
"And don't have them for dinner, I'll put you in a pot." It's a childish retort, a ridiculous one that is just ridiculous enough to make her next answer be a bit more informative.
"It's the stupid fish. They're not real."
no subject
"The fish aren't real," she echoes, deciding that fine, if they're going to do this, then why not try and talk about it. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"
no subject
Not because she's unused to people doubting her observations, oh no, she is. Even Finnick, although it's okay with him, because he doesn't think her silly. He's only ever just trying to work out what tricks her mind is playing and he's... he's safe. But other people, they doubt. She's Crazy Annie Cresta, who saw things that weren't there and spent her games giggling to herself.
No, it takes her a moment because normally it's not phrased like that, by someone who isn't about to either run or laugh. Just a bit of brusque questioning, that's all.
Then it takes her another moment of trying to keep her temper in check. Of course she's sure, honestly. She's not that stressed, and she's been sleeping just perfectly fine. And she's not hysterical, which tends to go along with hallucinating.
Humph.
"No, I'm pissed off," Annie says bluntly. "But I can perceive reality in a perfectly functional manner right now. Some of the fish are real, we can catch those ones. The others? Bah."
no subject
"So, they're putting in fake fish to our rivers now," she scoffs, shaking her head. "How do you tell the difference?" And is Johanna going to have to deal with fake fucking trees after all this, too?
no subject
"The river's filled with fish, right? Anyone could just reach in and grab one. But we can't. We still catch the normal amount, each time. Doesn't matter how often the nets are checked, we toss one in and it should be full and it's just... it's not. Been like this for days. And same with the traps.
And there's the strange ones with little notes in 'em, or coins."
There's frustration clear in her voice, a professional frustration at not being able to catch what her skill and experiences say she should, and a sulky frustration because it's not right.
no subject
"There are coins in the fish," she deadpans. "And notes? Where would they have swallowed them up from?" Because, to her, that's what that means. It's not like fish come like that. Well, normally. With a dark look on her face, she can't help thinking that notes and coins in fish is exactly the kind of fucked up muttation the Capitol would come up with for one of their little parties.
no subject
"Don't think they swallowed them," Annie says, a little absently. "I mean, least not the scrolls. Too big to go down without being bitten, and anyway, I didn't find the scroll in the guts. It was just in the body, outside any organs."
The thought does make her cock her head, though, and think.
"Not that I've asked around," she admits. "Maybe others are all swallowed up, and we're missin' scrolls due to how we butcher. Same with the coins. Uh."
That hadn't been Johanna's question.
"They come down from over the waterfall, but it seems all..." She twists her hands in the air. "Capitol-ish. Like a party-trick."
no subject
She squints at Annie, trying to imagine the coins and scrolls. "What are the scrolls saying?" she asks bluntly, because it's strange and it does seem like a party trick, but if there's information to be had, that's what she wants to know. "Is it threats? Ransoms? Demands?"
no subject
So it is that he makes his way over, keeping a close eye on the birds as he does.
"I take it things aren't going well?"
What things is another question entirely. But given that he doesn't have enough information to guess at that, yet, he figures he may as well start with a question that's a little more open-ended.
no subject
Yet despite the warning murmurs and coos, Annie still starts when Picard speaks. She spins around, armed with her net-repairing needle, then pauses. She regards the man for a long moment, evaluating him.
She's seen him before; Beverly seems to like him, trust him. That counts for something, as Beverly is kind.
"The fish have destroyed my net."
no subject
Still, he doesn't make any sort of threatening move, at first. Even when he's faced with the potential of being attacked with a needle - and he doesn't so much as assume that Annie wouldn't be able to do a significant amount of damage with it, if it should come to that.
"I had noticed there appeared to be more than usual of late," he answers instead, once she speaks up. "Is it something that will be easy to fix?"
There's genuine curiosity in his voice, at that. He's certainly aware that fishing with nets is a thing that can be done - and has been, in any of a number of civilizations - but it's not something he has any personal experience with either.
the inn.
By this point, he has grown comfortable enough in the kitchen to at least be able to chop vegetables.
Seeing Miss Cresta — Annie — join him and the others cooking is unusual, but he greets her with a smile and leaves space for her to gut the fish she'd procured, more than happy to leave such a disgusting job for her to do while he dealt with items that didn't bleed and weren't alive just yesterday.
She cuts her hand and swears, and Benedict is already whipping the clean towel he'd draped over his shoulder off so he can help her wrap the cut when she flicks what looks like a scroll out of the inside of the fish. He wrinkles his nose.
"By the Builders..." he mutters to himself, but does as she asks, gingerly picking the red cylinder up and unrolling the paper inside.
no subject
"Thank you," she says, and forgets to offer him a smile because of the scroll. Normally, she would. It's only polite, and he's a big, big man.
Squinting at the scroll, Annie peers in closer and reads aloud the printed letters there.
"Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else’s water lily," she says. Slowly. Then repeats them.
"... what's that supposed to mean?"
no subject
Patiently holding it open, he lets her read it, waiting until she's spoken to turn it slightly so he could read it too. Unfortunately, it makes just as much sense when he reads it as when she did, which is to say, it makes no sense at all.
"...we aren't eating onions," he points out slowly, looking across the kitchen at what is being prepared.
no subject
She's been startled by something strange, bizarre, unexpected. There's always that little part of her which needs someone else to go 'yes, I saw it, too' when that happens.
None of which helps puzzle out the meaning.
"Are water lilies edible?" is her question, before she realises that Benedict might not be the best person to ask. She doesn't know that much about him, but she knows enough to be aware that when it comes to What Can You Eat Out In Nature, he'd know less than her.
"I mean. It has to mean something, right? That's why it was in the fish."
no subject
"I had thought they were just decorative..." is his response, but he doesn't sound too sure of himself.
He frowns, studying the scroll again, before flipping it around in his fingers and peeking at the back, just in case there was another, more readily understood, message there that they had both missed.
"One would assume it was put there for you to find for some purpose, but to what end..."
no subject
She crinkles her nose at the idea of sticking it into the stinking mess that is used to tan animal hides.
"And without having a seam or mark on the fish. It's... It's normal." She turns, pokes the fish she'd been slicing with her knife. "It all smells and feels normal, so I guess it's.... not an obvious fake. So skill's gone in it, to give me a riddle."
Annie rubs her head, ignoring the fish blood she's just smeared over her forehead.
"It sounds a bit like a metaphor."
no subject
He misses vatteries with a sharp ache, sometimes. Life was easier when his meat was grown.
"I confess, I've never been fond of riddles," he admits, straightening and putting some distance between himself and the offending fish. Benedict has never had the temperament for riddles; he has always preferred to focus on facts and the present moment, not wrack his brain with pointless exercises that simply distracted him from what he was supposed to be doing.
Watching her smear blood on her forehead, he opens his mouth to tell her, then closes it. When she sees to her hand, she will undoubtedly see to the rest of her as well.
no subject
This scroll has all the smell of that.
She's focused enough on the puzzle, on the scroll, that she misses Benedict's behaviour. Normally, she'd have been overly-aware, over-thinking everything let alone just noticing normal discomfort not even hidden. But now?
"Alas, what we eat is someone else's... ornamental flower?"
Sounds very Capitol to her.
no subject
She reminds him of a skittish Cat, sometimes, hyper aware of her surroundings, especially around big lumbering humans.
Continuing, he gestures to the towel she's wrapped around her hand, the red stain of her blood slowly seeping through the makeshift bandage. "Your hand," he says. Rolling the scroll back up, he slips it into his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, after all. They can deal with the fish and the scroll late, right now they've got other things to focus on. Things like stopping the bleeding. "You should get that seen to, and quickly."
no subject
Her hand-?
Oh.
She flushes and shifts a little awkwardly. "Right, I. Kinda forgot about that. Um. The first aid backpack's stored in here somewhere, right? I'll. I'll get on that. Infection accounts for a large amount of deaths." Both in the arena and out, but that's a bit morbid to mention, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
"Would, uh, you um, mind giving me a hand with it?"
no subject
"Yes, I know." He has seen his fair share of wounds grow gangrenous due to lack of proper medical care, which is why it was such a large part of his education, both at the Temple and with the Guard.
"Of course. Come on, let's get out of everyone's way." He knows where the backpack is, but if they tend to her hand in the kitchen, they'll be blocking the sink at the very least, and people around here are trying to cook. "Would you mind coming to the washroom with me? It will get us out of the way and you can wash your hand before we begin." He doesn't want to assume she'd be fine putting herself in a tiny room with him, though. Annie is not Kate, quite obviously, and hasn't yet grown to trust him much. They have hardly spoken before, to be honest. He wouldn't blame her if she didn't want to leave the safety of the group in the kitchen.
no subject
But.
But, logically and reasonably, he'd have no reason to kill her. To hurt her. Not know, there's no desperation at the inn, no tension. Nothing.
She wouldn't kill him, if he tried anything. She can disable and run. She can. She can do that.
So Annie nods, short and jerky. "You go in first, yeah? I mean, you know the bathroom better than I do."
no subject
He does her the courtesy of not questioning her, asking her if she's alright or if she's sure. He knows why she wants him to go into the small tiled room first, and he's more than happy to leave the exits clear behind her so she feels she can get away from him if she wants to.
Benedict knows next to nothing about Annie, but he knows that wariness quite well.
"Alright," he agrees, blithely pretending he hasn't noticed her unease, setting down his knife and moving past her to collect the first aid kit that's stashed in the kitchen. "I'll get everything set up while you wash your hands."