here we go again [Homeward Bound]

[treadswater]

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: By the lake
WHEN: 10th May
OPEN TO: Finnick Odair
WARNINGS: TBA

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It is morning. Was morning. No, no, it is still morning. Still feels like morning; Annie will look at the sun to double-check, but later. First, she has to get her bearings. Again. A month and a bit, judging by rough time estimate and the clock on her wrist (which she doesn't trust) and zip, whoosh, blink and whoospie-daisy, she's somewhere else.

This time, without the hours of panic which had lead to her collapse a month ago, Annie just reacts. She immediately crouches down, turning her small body into an even smaller target. Just in case.

It feels like the same day, the same time. Morning, what passes for spring in this arena. A quick glance at her watch and it hasn't even been two minutes (if she trusted it, which she doesn't). But she's not in the (her) yard with her geese, filling up their woven pool. She's on a shoreline. A lake, not a river or the sea. It doesn't quite smell like the sea.

She doesn't panic. Not this time. It's all happened too fast. She doesn't yell, she can think enough not to yell, but carefully, slowly, she lifts her head to peer around more.

There.

Finnick.

His backpack is no longer in his hand, but on his back - he must have swung it there after he zipped and blinked and found himself here. He's armed, still. That's something. He moves, fast, behind a tree and all right, good, he can think and she can think and everyone can think and it is fine. They've had the same idea. Hide.

Silently, Annie shakes her head. Not now, she tells her thoughts. She needs to think in a more orderly fashion than the slipping chaos it is so easy to go along with. She also needs to talk to Finnick. The distance is too far to crawl without drawing attention to herself, too many patches, but she can move closer. Carefully, and slowly, and always keeping herself alert to the sounds around them.

It's not that different from the forest around the villages, she thinks. Mostly the same sounds, but with a few strange birds tumbled in there. She doesn't have a sensation of being watched, but that could be wrong.

Once she's close enough to Finnick, lying down with her hands braced against the ground in case she needs to push herself up and run, fast, she tips her head a little and asks, quietly.

"Where the hell are we this time?"