sixthiterationlogs | of boxes and hints

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of boxes and hints

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: #57 The Windemere | The Blacksmith's
WHEN: 11th October | 13th
OPEN TO: Finnick Odair | Tony Stark + E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: Probable anxiety issues - more TBA as needed
STATUS: Closed | Open

Closed to Finnick

They are still sleeping together. Wretchedly platonic, but it's warmer and safer if she and Finnick share the same pile of blankets. Particularly as they still aren't using the beds - no one has snuck up on them, but habits. Paranoia can save your life, so they hide. But there are dashes of normalcy, like this:

Annie always wakes up first.

It's still raining, and her joints still aren't hurting, and she should be grateful, she knows, but it's another cord of wrong, something is wrong, wrong, wrong that when she stretches out, she's waiting for something to pull. Crack. Break. But nothing does, so she leaves the still dozing Finnick and pulls on her boots to head downstairs for a perimeter check. Nothing's changed in the night, except...

Except there are a pair of boxes on the porch.

Creeping closer, Annie peers carefully through the window and she can see her name on one, Finnick's on the other.

For a long, frozen second, Annie's a statue of indecision. To bring them in? To leave them? A threat, a trap, a parachute of supplies and instructions? The others had talked of gifts, and that's what decides her. Cautiously, she opens the front door and brings the boxes in. There are rattles inside, as if they contain something, but nothing ticks and nothing explodes in her face. Still, she's not opening them. Not until she gets Finnick.

Which is why the man in question might find her tapping on his foot to wake up him.

Open

Annie knows the games. Yes, sure, these are strange ones, and she's weighing the compelling evidence for these to be something not from the sadistic mind of the Capitol's Gamemakers, but still. She knows games. She knows how they are played. She knows that there are hints to follow from those in charge, and it can be a good idea to follow them.

Even if terrifying.

While Finnick is off looking for a decent stick to craft a spear from, Annie puts her leather apron in her backpack and walks to the blacksmith's.

It's not a long walk. It seems to take an eternity. Annie feels exposed, walking openly in the little town. It takes effort not to dart from one house to another, takes effort not to run to her destination when dread makes her bones feel heavy and fragile all at once.

But she gets there, and she's proud of herself. She gets there, and no one's tried to kill her. The worst was a friendly wave: she's sure her answering smile had been more of a grimace than anything else, but she tried. And now she's here, at the blacksmith's. Her pocket-knife is safe and unused in the pocket of her dirty trousers, and she didn't run away.

Cautiously, she walks inside to look around. To try and work out why, exactly, the gamemakers of this place want her to come here. Certainly, there doesn't seem to be a glassmaking kiln anywhere.

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The closets in this house have proven to be useful. Not because they had anything of any value or even use in them, but because they're large, and that's meant that Finnick and Annie can pile up the blankets from the beds onto the closet floor and curl up together on their makeshift bed.

They're still trying to do their best to avoid the appearance of there being anyone in this house. They've got food, now that it's not raining so hard, but other than the food in the cupboards and stored in the iceless icebox, they've tried to limit themselves to their closet. But they're still on alert, constantly, the sort of exhausting alert that can mean that tributes get sloppy with fatigue after too long in the arena.

That alert is why, though he'd been deeply asleep, the tap of fingers on his foot jerks Finnick awake. Awake, and upright, and ready to fight, his hand reaching for the knife that's readily accessible in the very top of his backpack.

Annie knows him well enough to have known he'd wake like that, ready to attack, and he's glad of that when he sees it's her and not some intruder, perched near the entrance of their closet, carefully far enough from his reach that his immediate reaction wouldn't harm her.

In any other circumstances, he'd hate that reaction in himself, but here, it's part of what will keep them safe, so instead, he just lets himself relax, a little, his hand withdrawing from the backpack.

"Annie."

He has hurt her, in the past. In nightmares, in the hazy mornings when they were still learning each other. She's hurt him, too, but she can cause far less damage. So it pays to be cautious, for both physical safety and also because they can't afford to have him be distracted by guilt.

So, now he's awake and can see her, Annie crouches down to talk to him.

"Hey," she says. "We have some gifts, downstairs. In cardboard boxes, with our names on 'em. No parachute, and they were on the front porch." Then she smiles, a little ruefully. "Nothing exploded in my face when I moved them inside, at least."

One of the disadvantages of sleeping on the floor of a closet is that it's impossible to tell what time of day it is on awakening. He feels as rested as he ever can feel here, with the fatigue brought on by constant tension, but it's hard to judge how long he's been asleep.

Long enough that Annie has been up, has dressed, and has lost a little of the just-awoken sleepiness from her face.

She looks serious, so Finnick keeps his hand near the backpack, in case she's about to tell him something that means they need to move.

What she says makes his mouth tighten.

"Been wondering when that was going to happen." There's a pause as he works the zip of his backpack so he can pick it up to take downstairs.

"Still raining?"

It would be interesting to know if there were any tracks, or if the gifts appeared some other way, since there was no parachute. That's another familiar but not actually right detail, almost like someone had heard about the Games and had never seen them.

As if that were possible anywhere in Panem.

"It's still raining," she confirms with a sigh. "It doesn't seem like it's stopped any since it started." They are from District Four, and have lived at the Victors' Village at City One for years: they know the monsoon.

But rain and cold is new, and Annie in particular does not approve. Not that anyone has ever asked her to control the weather - she's a victor, not a gamemaker.

"I didn't stick around to do an outside perimeter check, but I didn't see any tracks from the window. Just, a lack of parachute, or anythin' that shows how the boxes arrived."

The difference here is that they don't have any protection against the downpour when they go outside, and they don't have the careful if small stockpile of food that a victor can manage to assemble against the possibility of storm or flooding. The scrounged meals from the inn helped, when carefully rationed. The last several days, though, the rain's at least lightened enough that they've been able to forage, reset some snares, and actually find enough to eat again.

Still, he wonders if the boxes might have some food in them: the straits they'd been in had been the sort of troubles that would have had him, as a mentor, making desperate calls until he could find enough sponsors to help. But you never want to send help too soon.

"The others talked about gifts." It's musing more than anything else, but it is a piece in the picture they're trying to construct. Not like gifts in the arena, which have parachutes and no nametags, but close enough, close enough to feel like an affirmation of their suspicions against everyone else's skepticism.

"You'd better show me what we've got."

Annie nods and leads him down the stairs, to the living room. The curtains at the front are half drawn, as they'd found them, but while it's clear Annie just brought in the boxes out of the rain before going up and waking Finnick, she's tried to angle them so they aren't easily seen.

"These. Same size, different weights."

With her foot, she pushes the box with her name on it over to the west corner of the living room, further out of the view of the front windows.

"Open them one at a time, or together?"

There's not much light this morning, but there never is: it's been raining since they came here, and they don't dare light a fire or try to find any way of getting light, because that would give away that someone is staying here. They're used enough to the dimness by now that they can find their way around, that the half-light from the slightly parted curtains is bright by comparison.

The boxes are plain cardboard, about a foot square, each with a label affixed to the lid. He bends down to study them as best he can, hovering his ear above his, then reaches out to gently tap the lid of the box with his name on it. He follows Annie in pushing the box with his own name on it across the room, but he doesn't get too close to her.

It could be a trap. It could, but even though they don't know the rules of this new game, they do know that the others in the village had talked about gifts. To him, that means a mentor's help in the arena, the only way a mentor can reach out to their tribute. Do they have mentors here, or sponsors?

"One at a time. I'll go first."

Before she can argue that (at least if it's a trap it won't get them both), he's lifted the lid from his box and reached into it to take out the first thing his fingers close around -- a spool of twine.

"They're gifts."

Of course he went first. He's brave. He's also sometimes so stupidly noble, she can't stand it. But that's all him, isn't it? Underneath the vanity and the playboy he has to play, he's brave.

She's not sure what she'd do without him, which kinda makes his being brave and going first not as tactically sound as he'd like to believe. But she knows him better than to say anything.

Besides, she can't. Not with whatever cameras might be here.

Annie kneels down then, and peers into his box. She puts her hand in, too, and pulls out a pocket knife.

"We came in, so they gave us gifts?" she asks, looking up at him. The timing of gifts, too, is important.

It's not, entirely, bravery. The feeling, if she'd expressed it, would have been mutual. He can't lose her, so he went first. Selfish, as much as brave. But it doesn't matter, because it's not a trap. It's a gift, although rather than something as simple as the trident Mags had sent him in the arena, it's pieces: a spearhead, twine, a substantial container of something dark, and the knife that Annie's taken out.

Finnick sets the twine back down and picks up the container. When he takes the lid off, the aroma is sharp, instantly recognizable. He holds it out to Annie for her to smell. Pitch. Enough of it, if used carefully, to be very useful. He does, deep in his mind, know how to make it, but it's been a long time since he's had to, and they haven't dared risk a fire in the fireplace yet.

He hasn't, immediately, thought of the strategic implications, preoccupied as he is with the contents of the box, but Annie makes a very good point. Sponsor money is limited, even for District Four, and the moment a gift is sent can be as important as the gift itself.

"I think I'm supposed to make my own weapons," he says, partly in answer to her. It doesn't answer the question on timing, but it does seem important. The problem with a gift is that it's hard to be sure the tribute knows what it means. "Because we came in, or because we ran out of food?"

She doesn't answer him straight away. Handing over the pocket knife to him, she shifts on her knees and opens her own box. There's a tension as she does it; she can nearly hear the ominous music in the Victor's Edit.

But when she opens the box, nothing goes boom. No mutt leaps out to attack her face and throat, no gas fills the room and burns her hands.

Instead, there's a length of folded cloth. Leather, she finds out as she pulls it out. It's a leather apron. Underneath, there are pants (white, of course), a packet of something, and a knife of her own.

She runs her thumb over the pocket knife, looking back to the apron.

"Because we came in," Annie says in a not-quite echo of what she just said.

He's prepared to believe that the things he's been given are intended to tell him to make his own weapons rather than relying on finding any, if he wants to survive. It's not something he's ever done much of, but he's seen it done, and he's sure he can work out the details: twine for binding, pitch for waterproofing and to act as an adhesive, a knife to help in shaping the haft. He could probably even craft a trident, if he could find something to use for the tines.

Still, Finnick's watching Annie as she bends over the box with her own name on it. He still has the knife in his hand, though it's folded, blade safely guarded by its handle. But he's ready to launch himself to her protection if she needs it, even if it now seems increasingly likely that these are gifts, not traps. Gifts, and practical ones, like a mentor would send.

Annie's box isn't a trap, either. There's some sort of leather garment, maybe for protection, that she lifts out, and he bends over to see into the box and sees more clothing, something he doesn't recognize, and a knife, not quite the same shape and size as his.

All he can do is not at her restatement of her question.

"Looks like it. New pants aren't exactly vital for survival."

Nice to have, though, even if they, too, are white.

He reaches to rub his fingers against the leather. "What do you think this's for?"

"It's a workin' apron," Annie murmurs. She stands up, shaking out the garment to better asset it. "Glass. Blacksmith. Butcher?"

It's a sturdy garment, dark brown with a pocket. It's sized well enough, as if it's been designed for her small body. That's a thought to make her frown. It makes sense, in that whoever has grabbed her and Finnick clearly knew to grab them even if it's not something related to Panem, but that just whispers more questions of how.

"There's that smithy we saw, yeah?" she asks Finnick, glancing at him. "Or what looked like it. I'd say it could be a direction I'm wanted to go in."

Finnick doesn't say anything right away, but he's watching Annie, one arm leaning on his knee, his brows lowering a little in thought. It's clear from the size that the apron is meant to be worn, and by Annie, sized right for her just like the clothes they'd both been given had been.

Just like the custom-made tributes' uniforms and parade outfits. Except this one is a suggestion, not of their environment, but something to do.

"Are you supposed to make weapons?" he wonders. It's the most obvious thing to use the smithy for, in the context, but Annie would be better suited to trying to make more jars, or work out how to repair the broken windows in the town, and that's less about fighting the Games than it is helping the town, the way people would back in the districts.

"Maybe. Or..."

She's met people, in the forest. People who were shocked at what she said about the games. People who worked in the village; farmed, hunted, gathered. Gathered firewood. Chopped it up. She knows blades, any fishwife does, she knows how fast they grow blunt.

"Fix metal tools. I know heat. I know how to work with molten material. Maybe they want me to learn?"

Frowning, Annie sits down. "I don't..." She glances up, mouths 'know' at him.

She doesn't know. She doesn't understand this arena and game at all.

He's met those people, too. The people who band together to share food, who meet for lunch, who check weapons out from the Inn and share the intelligence they've gathered in books and sheets on the wall. The ones who say they see no evidence this is like the Games, despite everything Finnick and Annie have said.

It's just so far from anything that either of them have known that it's hard to believe whoever put them here might not want them to fight.

"Doesn't sound like something you'd need to do in an arena."

It's an answer to the question she's not asking, but there's a hint of hesitation in his tone.

He's not as sure as he was at first.

"No, not a normal one," Annie says. She's studied the games - as a Career, it is literally her career to. All the games, pulling out similarities and differences, trends and constants.

None of them have ever been remotely like this. The ones set in more obviously man-made structures, the actual gameplay remained the same. It was only ever the terrain and details of the traps and mutts and tribute personalities which changed drastically.

This is something new.

And she can't see the pattern, can't see how it fits together.

"Should we follow the suggestions? Interact with the rest here?"

It's hard to know what to say. It's dangerous, bordering on treasonous, to say anything of the kind in an arena. In an arena, everyone knows the rules, few and brutal as they are. Everyone knows the aim, to be the last one left alive. But if people here are playing that game, they're playing it on a much longer timeline than the Hunger Games are ever allowed.

Neither of them have said it as openly as this before; they may be in the house they've taken shelter in, but they've also been assuming that it's bugged and observed just as much as anywhere else here. This isn't a private conversation. And it's dangerous to have, or it is if everything they know is true here.

Annie, though, is cautious, and if even she is saying something like this then her observations over time have led her to change her thinking.

His voice is quiet as he spends a moment studying the folding knife in his hand.

"The others are doing it." He glances across at her. "They say so far nothing's happened that seems like punishment."

One would think, to look at them, that Finnick is the leader of the two. He's the charismatic one, the confident one, but in truth, it's not that simple. In truth, it is more often than not that Annie decides a course to take.

Like now.

"We need more allies," Annie says, finally. Softly. It's not a declaration to anyone but Finnick. "Weather's changin'."

They are here long enough that winter's on the air, even for a pair of tributes who have lived on the Gulf of Panem for years.

"And there's been a number of overtures, from different people but all for the village."

Edited 2016-11-21 09:21 (UTC)

He does have the charisma, the bravado, the charm, that Annie lacks, but Finnick also knows that she has some things that he lacks: an eye for the broader strategic situation, when he sees the tactical, an analytical mind that can see the patterns in events while he's trying to navigate through them. They've learned that, since they've been together, though it's tended to show in them comparing thoughts on each year's Games rather than in a more immediately practical way.

He really does trust her insight, and he listens in silent attention to what she says. It's a few moments after she finishes that he replies, and when he does, his voice is soft too.

"They help each other, and they're surprised we don't expect that."

Could they genuinely be trying to build the little group that's shown up here into a village instead of a collection of strangers?

"We've already run out of food once."

"And we will again." There's no accusation in her voice, no censure. It's simply fact: they'll run out of food again. They are out of their home environment, and they've been trained for a very different game than this. A shorter one, with a support team behind them.

Here, the support team is apparently what you build. The gifts from whoever is watching are random, unreliable. You can't factor them in to future plans.

"So. I think we should.

Do you?"

She is certain he does, too. Now. His words told her that much. But she needs to hear it.

Tributes from Four are rarely in danger of starving.

Partly because many of them know at least something about fishing, but also because Four is a district that can muster significant sponsor donations. They send good-looking, talented tributes to the Games, and their mentors know how to swing things for them. Finnick knows how to flirt a donation out of just about anybody. They'd both survived their own Games in part because of sponsor gifts: Annie because of the survival gear he'd been able to send when she was frantically trying to outlive her opponents; Finnick because Mags had gotten him everything he needed, from extra food to medicine to the trident that made his Games famous.

He knows that a lot of tributes don't have that tenuous safety net, because their appearance, their talent, the ability of their mentor, don't appeal to sponsors.

It's like that here. If he'd been a mentor, watching the situation they'd been in, he'd have sent food to stop them starving. Instead, he'd had to go to Kate Kelly at the Inn.

"We don't have much choice."

He's reluctant to admit it, but there are few other options if they don't want to be that percentage that dies of exposure or starvation.

Edited 2016-12-13 15:03 (UTC)

When he comes to the blacksmith to see if Thorfinn is there, he finds a young girl instead. He's just brought Baby back to the house for Jake to take care of him, but had hoped to meet up with the man to talk about the potential of altering a knife for him. Still, if she's here in the shop, then either she has some interest in it or has some need of something inside it.

Standing silently in the doorway, he knocks, leaning his weight against the frame as he watches her explore. "I think everyone stole the useful things, already," he warns.

She startles. Not at his presence, for she hadn't lost track of the world enough to forget to be aware and alert and on the ball and all of that, but because he looks like home and sounds similar to it, too. Not quite, the accent isn't exactly the same. But it's more honest than even she's been sounding, given how much she's been moderating how she sounds.

Still, despite the fact he could be an uncle, Annie is highly aware that he's standing in the doorway.

"I, um," she starts, and she hopes she sounds more uncertain than guilty or suspiciously nervous. "I wasn't looking to steal," she manages. "I was, just. Seeing what was here. What was usable."

He raises his brow as he tries to decide whether he believes her or not, shrugging when he decides that it doesn't really matter. After all, it's not like he hasn't taken what he wants, so it's not like he's in a place to act like he can rain justice down. "You know how to use these materials?" Cougar asks, gesturing around him in order to get a sense as to what her skills might be.

If there is something useful to her, here, then it could be useful to him if he starts to trade.

Annie nods, and then pauses, hesitating as if a firm answer might trip her up. "Some of them," is what she says. "I, I might? Be able to work at some others. I make glass. I mean, mostly useless artsy stuff, but bottles, jugs, I can do those too."

She looks around the smithy, moistening her lips with a nervous dart of her tongue.

"The, um. I got a box with a leather apron. The kind you'd use with stuff like this, I guess."

Cougar watches every one of her movements, thinking that he needs to keep himself non-threatening and to avoid presenting himself as any kind of threat. She seems skittish - the sort of person who might spook if he gets slightly too Cougar-like, as Jake might put it. "Bottles," he says. "If you can make bottles, I can trade." By now, he's got enough pelts, food, and other assets that mean he can trade into whatever he likes.

And bottles? They can help a great deal in storing things like animal fat that can be turned into other useful items, down the road.

She watches him as much as everything else. More than everything else. The walls can't hurt her. The forge will not hurt her for it's not on, yet. No heat from it. He might, if he wants.

"What would you trade?" Annie asks, and there's a note in her voice, under the fear and wavering, of someone who has bargained in the past. A beat of joking sass, an owner of goods and services to another.

"Good for storage," Cougar explains, which goes for supplies, medicine, hunting, and even personal supplies. Small bottles will help in that regard and large ones will be good for things like storing animal fat and other things that he doesn't like to waste after he's killed an animal. "If you can make it," he says, adding just the slightest edge of doubt in there, as if he wants her to prove him wrong.

Her eyes narrow at that, steel and pride flashing out from underneath the anxiety. She's a fragile ball of nerves, but she hadn't always been so. And she knows her craft. She'd chosen it randomly, but then committed herself.

"The river has sand on the bottom," she says. "After that, it depends on how hot the temperature can be made, how many furnaces can be worked or the technique adapted. If there's something I can use as a blowpipe.

For stoppers, has to fit. That requires tools."

It's not a promise that she can, but it's a declaration of intent: she'll try.

"If not, could see if it's transferable to metal. There's enough scrap around."

He gives a contented noise and a look towards her that says that it sounds like she can do it, then. "You see? No trouble," he says, even if what she's said sounds like a hefty list for anyone to accomplish, never mind someone with the limited resources that they have. "I promise, we will have equal trade."

He's not a man to avoid his word, and he's also not a man to shirk his duties.

Annie snorts softly: she's well aware of what she just listed, and what may or may not be around. But she's been raised for games in arenas, games where the tributes are given gifts. If they are good. If they are interesting. If there are sponsors.

She has an apron, maybe she'll get what she needs, too.

If she does what is wanted.

"I know heat," she says then. "How to judge it. That can be useful with metal, maybe. If I can try."

There's a question, there: would she be allowed to try? She's an outsider here, she knows. She's trying to gage the community dynamics and culture as best she can.

Cougar offers her a nod of his head. This is all he can ask for, because they are in a limited environment without many supplies or resources. If bottles through trade are the best he can do, then he'd best keep the girl able to make bottles happy with him. "I promise," he says and looks very serious to say it. He wouldn't break a promise like that, especially not one so tied in survival.

"You can even teach me," he offers, seeing as it wouldn't hurt to have more information on hand when it comes to this.

She nods back, a silent movement of gratitude without actually saying the words. She thinks this man would understand, though. Or maybe she just hopes he does.

"I could teach," she says, running her front teeth over her bottom lip thoughtfully. She doesn't add that she's shy, awkward. If he hasn't picked that much up, he won't be much good in survival situations with groups of people anyway.

"What would you teach return?"

"I could teach you ways to hunt and shoot," Cougar offers, because his skills are very good, even without guns. "I could teach you to cheat at cards," he offers, a touch playfully, as he smirks and thinks about how he hasn't been able to get a deck of cards yet, but once he creates some, he knows he'll be eager to take money from people. "Or Spanish?" he offers, arching his brow.

Spanish hits a nerve. It's a dim memory, another word for a language that mostly stamped out even before the Dark Days, so a lot of people don't remember it more than lingering words. Abulita, plaza. Terms for nautical gear, weather. People's names, the names of living animals. Plants. A lingering extra vocabulary that gets switched out for official channels.

"Cheating at cards," Annie says.

It is not as if learning how, potentially, to control or use her facial expressions and nervous tics more won't be useful. And it sounds far safer, with all the games she is trying to play in this arena.

Besides.

If Cougar doesn't know about her aim with a spear, so much the better. Finnick is the one famous for his trident. Finnick is the one who made himself a spear here. No reason for anyone to know about her aim.

But there is another question.

"Do you have cards here?"

He shrugs with the hint of a proud smirk on his lips, given how good Cougar is at cheating at cards. "No, but we can make one," he allows, because it wouldn't take long to put together some kind of deck of cards, especially with all the time they have on their hands. Maybe he could even carve something. They would be thick and harder to hide, but it would do the trick.

"Maybe someone else has them?" he offers. "Gifts come, all the time."

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of boxes and hints

11th October

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