of boxes and hints

[treadswater]

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.

Comments

[treadswater]

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?"

[thecatinahat]

"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.

[treadswater]

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?"

[thecatinahat]

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."