to the victors, the spoils

[71st_victor]

WHO: Johanna Mason
WHERE: The Fountain | The Inn
WHEN: December 3, Mid-Day
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Violence, Nudity
STATUS: Open

---

Under Attack

She opens her eyes to water. There's nothing but water around her and below, there's the distinctly familiar shape she's seen twice below in her life. Launch pad. They've never launched victors in the water before, though, because then there's no way to keep them on the pad until the countdown is done, which means...which means what. The icy cold water is making it hard to think, but she refuses to swim to the top until she's got a plan. She'd been knocked out by Katniss aiming the arrow at the sky, so the Capitol could've gotten to her. The tracking chip is still in her arm (which is something that's coming out the first chance she gets).

So what? What, then? What would the Capitol do to her? They'd make her pay and they'd make suffer. There's no one left to die for her, so why not just kill her? Unless they think that living is a worse punishment.

She's running out of time (and air) and she needs a plan. If this is an old arena, maybe they flooded certain parts of it and that's why she's able to get to the top. Before she does, though, she kicks her way back down until she finds a piece of stone that looks sharp enough to attack with and uses all her energy to kick her way to the top, bursting past the surface of the water with a gasp before she positions herself at the back of the ... fountain? Okay, then.

Waiting, biding her time, Johanna keeps treading water and ignoring the chill of it as she brandishes one hand outside of the water, the small stone shiv ready to pierce if it needs to. Whoever comes by first is going to give her some answers, whether they like it or not.

By The Fire

It doesn't take long for her to figure out a way away from the fountain (which is a launch pad without a detonation device, apparently, which makes sense if this is an arena that's already been used and decommissioned). It takes her a little longer than that to evaluate the area around her for threats, but she heads for the house with the smoke coming out of the chimney. It's stupid, is what it is, but if she's right, then whoever's in there isn't going to be a threat.

If this is an arena that the Capitol is using as some kind of unseen prison, then it stands to reason that everyone here is an ally in the fight against the Capitol. Goody for Johanna, she gets to spend her time behind bars instead of up front in the action, getting the vengeance she's been so sorely denied for so long. She's been looking forward to it ever since they reaped her for the fucking Quarter Quell, all because she was the only one strong enough to have survived.

"At least someone knows how to be hospitable," she says, slinging her bag onto the ground as soon as she's inside, stripping off her clothes without a moment's delay while keeping herself a decent distance from the fire, yanking up one of the curtains lingering around to start drying her hair as she kicks off the pants and underwear, tugging off the bra and shirt next until she's standing completely naked in the foyer of the building.

When she hears footsteps, her guard is up, but she doesn't act like it. She knows better than anyone that you should let your opponent think you're not a threat until the last, crucial moment.

"I know the view's great," she says over her shoulder, still working at drying her hair, "But I don't suppose you've got a change of clothes and some food? I'm starving," she says, the Games having denied her a decent meal and her head is pounding after having to deal with Katniss and her ridiculous lack of trust in her. You cut a girl's arm open one time, and what does it get you? No thanks, that's what.

Comments

[fishermansweater]

He still doesn't like spending time in the Inn, no matter that he and Annie have decided that whatever is going on here, they need allies. He doesn't like being in a building with that many people he doesn't trust. But since he and Annie are going to occasional meals there, Finnick's been spending a lot of time secreted in the overgrown patch across the road from the Inn. Since winter set in, it provides less cover, but there are a couple of evergreens there, and the shrubs still give enough of a disruption that you'd have to really be looking to see him.

That's where he is this afternoon when he sees a figure emerge from the fountain park and dart across the road to the Inn. Same bright red why-don't-you-paint-a-target-on-me clothes as he's been forced to wear since he got here. Dark hair, and a purposeful, predatory movement that he knows.

Johanna.

He hopes it's not her. He doesn't want another of his friends trapped here, at the Capitol's whim. But it would be a relief, too: she's one of the few people he knows he can trust, and the constant tension of not knowing which of the fifty people her to trust is exhausting.

So he slips out from his hiding place and follows her into the Inn, still unsure if he wants it to be her or not.

The sight that greets him is a naked woman, drying off her hair on one of the stolen curtains.

That's definitely Johanna.

"You could try looking in the bag," he suggests, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed.

For now, he's keeping his distance. He trusts her, but she's volatile at the best of times, and she's never seen him looking like this: hair untrimmed, bearded, black coat and red pants not only wet but dirty.

Hardly the famed darling of the Capitol.

[71st_victor]

She's moving before his name is even off her lips, "Finnick" breathed out with relief as she moves forward before she gets a good look at him. She'd just seen him at the tree and now he looks like he's decided to stop living off the wealth of people's sick Victor kinks and thinks that scrounging off the street is a better idea. Disgust flickers over her face as she takes in the look of him, gaze slipping down to what he's wearing. Red, just like her. That doesn't exactly do anything but confirm that someone had to have their hands on them.

Casting her gaze upwards, she looks for cameras or drones, but then, if this is actually a prison, then so long as the prisoners don't escape, who cares if anyone is watching? After all, it's not like anyone's ever escaped an arena. At least, not until now. "The bag was in the water with me," she replies sharply, bending down to pick up the strap and give it a wiggle before she drops the curtain and shakes some of the remaining icy moisture out of her hair.

She stands there, unashamedly, hands on her hips as she gives Finnick a long look, trying to figure out what's happening. "Katniss?" is all she asks, not giving anything away just yet while still trying to figure out exactly what it is she's walked into this time.

[fishermansweater]

There's a look that tributes get after they've been in the arena for a few days. The stylist's polish doesn't last long against the elements, and even the best supplied tribute goes hungry. It doesn't take long for that to become shadows in the face, hollowness around the cheeks, and he's sure Johanna can tell that he's been hungry for a long time.

(Even aside from the fact that he'd never grow a beard if he had any choice. His jaw's too pretty for this.)

He's not the only one who's not his usual carefully groomed self, though: her hair is a mess, her face a little thinner than he's used to seeing it.

"It's waterproof," he says, nodding towards her backpack. "There should be some clothes and a coat."

Not that the clothes are particularly appealing, but even overalls are better than freezing. That Johanna is naked doesn't faze him: most victors learn not to care too much about nudity after their entire lives have been opened up to all of Panem.

Her next question, though, is one he doesn't have an answer for. Katniss? like she expects him to know what she means. He's never even met Katniss, not yet, though the revolution's initial plans for the Quarter Quell involve protecting her, because she's the only female victor from District Twelve, and she'll be in that arena.

And Johanna is the only female victor from District Seven. He's been here for months, what might have happened in Panem in the meantime?

He frowns, faintly, and his voice is slow as he asks a question of his own.

"What was happening before you got here?"

[71st_victor]

He looks awful and despite Johanna's occasional wish to see Finnick looking something less than Victor-perfect, this isn't exactly how she'd wanted to do it. More concerning, though, is the part where he's acting like he has no idea what's going on. She bends down to unzip the bag and slides into the coat with nothing beneath, figuring that it'll warm her up, sitting down to tug on the long-johns that kind of make her feel a little ridiculously like a child again, following her father to work on the colder days while he taught her how to wield an axe.

"How do you not know that?" she demands sharply, eyeing him for a sign that this isn't Finnick or that he's had his memory tampered with. With enough torture, the Capitol could do anything to you. What if this isn't Finnick at all? What if this is some kind of plan to get her to reveal the plans. "I'm not exactly going to blurt everything out, I'm not that stupid," she says critically.

[fishermansweater]

She's the second person he's had to help get warmed up after appearing in the fountain in the freezing cold recently, but just like the other woman and himself and Annie, Johanna finds a coat in her backpack. At least between the warmth of the Inn and the coat and long underwear, she's not going to be in the chill of the fountain's water for long.

What she says, though, gives him a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.

"I've been here for months," he says, quietly. He waves a hand up and down in front of his body, indicating the beard, the increasingly-shaggy hair, the way the clothes they gave him when he arrived here hang too loosely on a body that's lost muscle mass through sheer hunger since he and Annie arrived here, no matter that Annie tries to make him eat enough to sustain his larger mass.

"I thought you knew."

He and Annie have been assuming they're watched, not just by the mysterious Gamemakers or whoever it is that sends those boxes and messes with the water and the weather and unleashes mutts on the village, but by cameras, bugs, their punishment broadcast in some sort of unprecedented arena with some longer game in play.

"Hardly seemed the sort of thing that wouldn't be broadcast."

[71st_victor]

"No, you haven't," she replies back, like she automatically knows better than Finnick. And why shouldn't she? She'd seen him in the arena with her only hours ago, before they'd started to put the final stages of the plan into being before the revolution could begin. "You definitely weren't sitting around looking pathetic and hairy," she can assure him of that much, trying to figure out what the hell is happening here and how any of this could make sense.

"Maybe you got drugged," she says, but that still wouldn't explain how he's gone so mountain man all of a sudden. "God, you'd look right at home in Seven," she says, with mild admiration and disgust, seeing as she's always thought of Finnick as anything but.

"Finnick, what the fuck is going on?" she finally demands, niceties over.

[fishermansweater]

"Think I grew this overnight?" he asks, flourishing a hand at the stupid, prickly, untrimmed beard that's all over his jaw. She surely knows him well enough to know that only deprivation could make him look like this. Vanity is, after all, one of his better-known traits.

"That's three months without a razor or depilatory treatment."

Her question, though, is something that's less easy to answer.

"People show up, in that fountain," he starts, waving a hand towards the door. "All of them in clothes like these, but in different colors. All of them with one of those packs on their backs, no weapons, no food. Nobody seems to remember how they wound up here or have any idea why they're here." He shrugs, shifting against the wall.

"When I wound up in the fountain, I thought they must have drugged me to make me forget the reaping and training for the Quarter Quell. Nobody else seems to think that's what's happening. Most of them say they've never heard of the Hunger Games."

That's the unbelievable bit.

[71st_victor]

"Even you couldn't slide into that kind of ugly in one night," she allows in a complete deadpan, knowing that Finnick won't take it personally. He knows her better than to do that, which means that while she lets the barb slip off her lips, she can assess the situation for what it apparently is. The trouble with all of this is that she'd seen Finnick so recently and apparently, he doesn't remember the Quarter Quell. "You were already there in that arena with me," she says. "I got knocked out, when I came to, I was in the water."

Half drowning, but it's not like the Capitol trying to kill Johanna is anything new - it's just a different method, on a different day. She raises a brow and glances around them. "Okay, so, let's say that you're not lying to me and you really are from before me," she says, her brain spinning a crazy tale. "What if these people don't know the Hunger Games? What if this is District 13? What if District 13 calls them something different?"

What if all the revolution was just leading them to another pot of crazy?

[fishermansweater]

It doesn't make sense. Any of it, and he's more unsettled by the fact that she'd seen him -- apparently not ugly, though he raises his eyebrows at the description -- just the day before, in the arena, than by anything else she's said.

You were already there in that arena with me

He'd known that had to happen. As soon as the fact that it would be victors in the arena was announced, he'd known it. Because the revolution was about Katniss, and because Katniss is the only female victor from her district, just like Johanna. He'd assumed he'd need to be there to look after Katniss, because looking out for her was always going to be the deal, even when it was just as a fellow mentor.

So he'd assumed this place was the Quell, and he just hadn't remembered how he'd gotten here, and it had taken a lot to even start to make him doubt that. Johanna's statement just seems to confirm he was totally wrong about that.

How could he have just been with her in Quell, and been here at the same time?

"They don't even know what the districts are," he says. "Or they say they don't, but I'm starting to believe them."

There have been too many blank looks, too many people who showed no sign of recognition of him, or of Annie. Too many people who treated Annie like they had no idea she was meant to be crazy.

"Who was the female from District Four?" he asks, after a few moments' thoughtful pause. He's not sure if it's relevant, but it's something she can tell him about where she'd just been.

[zymasoldat]

Bucky hasn't been feeling all that useful since his arrival in the village. The loss of his robotic arm has him unable to do as much tracking or exploring as he'd like (it'd be stupid, after all, to go wandering outside of the village while he's still trying to adapt to his disability 70 years after-the-fact), and he's too cautious, too used to living like a ghost, to mingle with the community, such as it is. Mostly, he just tries to get used to having to do once-simple tasks more slowly, finding workarounds where he can. And he tries to stay on top of what's going on, even if he didn't attend the feast or join anyone in mourning the recent death of the girl.

Periodically, he returns to the fountain, hoping to learn more about it-- how he and the others got here. Maybe if he times it right, he can catch someone's arrival and gain some more insight into what's going on.

Today, though: no such luck. There's a newcomer, but he's already missed the actual point of arrival, so he doubts she'll know any more than he did when he arrived two weeks ago. Still, he approaches the fountain, keeping a careful distance as he notices the woman's holding onto something-- a sharp stone, he realizes, once he's close enough. Not that he can blame her for being cautious, considering the circumstances, but he's hoping she won't jump to use it on him-- whether she thinks he's the enemy here, or that he's just an easy target because he's missing an arm (though he's got a coat on, it's obvious by the way one sleeve's hanging empty).

Of course, Bucky can still fight, if it comes down to it, but he'd rather not. He's been burned out on violence for a long time.

"You should get somewhere dry before your body loses anymore heat." Which, yeah, he's sure she knows. He's not saying it because he thinks it hadn't occurred to her, so much as he's hoping it'll give her a nudge to get out of the fountain instead of brandishing a makeshift weapon.

[71st_victor]

Johanna absently kicks at the water to keep herself afloat, even if she's braced herself against the stones as she sizes up the man in front of her. It doesn't take long for her to size him up, figuring that she could probably take him, but then, she also knows better than to trust appearances. "It'll be at least another few minutes before it gets critical," she replies, sure of this much. Shivering, though, she knows that she has to formulate a plan.

"Who took your arm? The Capitol? Another tribute?" she asks, hauling herself and the bag over the side, her fingers clenching around the weapon as she refuses to let her body convulse too hard, trembling only every few moments when her stubbornness gives way.

[zymasoldat]

Bucky can tell when she starts sizing him up, and it's not something he can fault her for. He'd have done the same if the first person he came across upon his arrival hadn't been somebody he already knew. He's just glad when she starts to pull herself out of the fountain, because he really didn't want to have to try to haul her out, himself, while she was so guarded.

"Tribute?" he repeats, her reference going over his head. "I lost it in a war." It seems the easiest way to explain without getting into the specifics of the train, and the Soviets, and the HYDRA scientists who altered his body further. Bucky shrugs off his coat and holds it out to her in offeing, though he doesn't move closer yet, lest he startle her into a fight.

"My name's Bucky," he offers.

[71st_victor]

Don't they lose everything in a war? One or another, whether it's the kind that starves you or the kind that drops you into a ring with other kids your age, forcing you to learn how bloody your hands can get (and how much you can quietly enjoy feeling powerful). It's coming home and standing her ground, only to lose the war that stole her family away from her. It's all wars and she's lucky that her scars are the kind you don't get to see. "Johanna," is her reply, finding it a touch strange that he doesn't recognize her. Maybe he's only playing at it, but he kind of seems like he doesn't really know her. "Bucky, huh?" she echoes, a touch sardonically.

"Well, buck up, you're still handsome enough with just the one arm," she promises, eyeing the area around them. "Shelter," she insists. "And then you can tell me what we're up against." The Gamemakers must have set up some traps, even if this is a defunct arena. They wouldn't so stupid to just leave them here without at least some kind of security.

[zymasoldat]

He's sure 'Bucky' is about the last name someone would expect for a guy like him, but he just responds to the sardonic way Johanna repeats it with a slight shrug of one shoulder. After fighting like hell to reclaim some semblance of a sense of self, the name's important to him.

"Thanks," he says wryly, before nodding in the direction of the inn. "That way. The inn. You can use my coat until we get there," he offers, holding it out to her one last time. Even with the effects of Zola's knock-off serum dampened these days, he's still a bit more durable than the average person, and besides: he's used to the cold.

Without another word, he starts in the direction of the inn. The sooner they get there, the sooner he can fill her in on the situation as he understands it. And, maybe, he could learn more about where she's from. The word 'tribute' lingers in his mind, raising all sorts of questions.

[71st_victor]

She reaches out to take it, but makes sure that once she has it in her hands, she ducks back out of attacking range, knowing that you can't count anyone out (no matter their physical state). She bundles herself into it, tugging the collar a little higher to protect her neck as she coughs out something that might have been a 'thank you' at some point in its life.

"The inn?" she asks, casting her eyes around her. It looks like Seven. It feels like a bad winter in Seven, but it's not like they have an inn. "Not city hall? Where's the mayor? Where's the person in charge?"

[zymasoldat]

Bucky shakes his head before looking back at Johanna. "There's no mayor. This place, it looks like a town, but..." He frowns, keeping his eyes focused on the inn as they make their way closer and closer to it. "It's more of a prison."

Or so he's been told. Given his physical circumstances, and the recent events, Bucky hasn't made any attempt to explore beyond the village, himself, to verify the natural barriers keeping them trapped. It's not complacency, however. He'd just rather not find himself in a tight spot, unable to fully defend himself, because he was foolish enough to venture into the wilderness without first mastering the art of, say, tying his boots one-handed.

He's not going to allow himself to be dead weight on any expedition.

"Nobody knows who our jailers are-- or if they do, they haven't shared the information. Nobody's seen them." Bucky spares another glance at Johanna. "You mentioned a Capitol...?" He lets the question drift off, an open invitation to elaborate. If she knows of anyone, any group or governing body, that might be responsible for this, it could be useful information. Even if this 'Capitol' isn't behind this village at all.

[71st_victor]

"If anyone's putting us in a jail, it'll be the Capitol," Johanna says darkly, her mind already starting to wonder if maybe he's right. If this is a prison, it would make a lot of sense as to why she didn't wake up somewhere protected and safe on the way to Thirteen. She didn't get the tracker out of her arm, true, but she also doesn't think they'd just get rid of her. It makes it all the more likely that they'd drop her in the kind of jail cell that doesn't require a physical jailer.

"That theory goes out the window if you don't know what the hell the Capitol is, though," she points out, a touch suspicious as she glares at him, wondering where he comes from. "How do you not know?" She wants to ask how he doesn't know her, but her ego can be swallowed for now and it won't poison her. "How long have you been here?"

Inn

[booklegging]

The footsteps come from the staircase as Jess makes his way down the stairs; he's not sneaking around today and so feels no need to mask them.

He's also not looking up, and as a result Johanna's unfamiliar voice puts him on the defensive immediately. He knows most of the prisoners--the owner of the voice isn't one of them. When he cuts a glance toward the main room in search for the source, what he finds is a young woman's naked back. And naked rear. And naked everything.

Talk about deja vu. First Raven, and now this.

In Raven's case, she'd at least kept her underthings on. Every inch of this girl is completely on view. "Um, sorry to interrupt. Didn't realize we had a newcomer."

Surprise and a sense of propriety compel him to look away more than embarrassment. He's used to seeing naked bodies in all kinds of contexts. What grabs his attention first and foremost is that she's dripping water on the floor--another person fresh from the fountain. Great. And in winter temperatures, too. This is going to be a real problem real soon if this keeps happening into the dead of winter.

"There should be some spares your size in that bag, provided the water didn't get in. Kitchen's that way." He helpfully points in the direction of Kate's domain.

[71st_victor]

Johanna turns in order to take a longer look at the boy speaking to her, feeling like she's right at home in the arena with other teenagers. She keeps drying at her hair absently, staring at him with a half bored look as she glances to the bag. "Is that all that's in there? Clothes?" She bends over to start digging through it, finding more and more clothes, but no food or weapons.

What kind of pathetic moving cornucopia is it if it's not even going to feed you or protect you? "They know our sizes," she says with a snide little snort, starting to go through. "Which means someone put it together and strapped it on my back." It means that Johanna has to be wary, in case someone's coming out here to kill them all.

"Who are you?" she demands.

[booklegging]

She's got the right idea. "You take the prize," he says, keeping her in the peripheral of his vision even while he continues to avert his gaze. "Hold that thought a minute."

And he reverses course, doubling back the way he'd come. He returns soon after with a bundle in his hands--a proper towel and a plain black sweatshirt. His own, and fortunately for Johanna, it's (relatively) freshly laundered.

This time he makes his way all the way downstairs. "The name's Jess Brightwell. Here." He offers the bundle up to her. It'd be one thing if it were still summer and newcomers could dry off quickly in the noonday heat, but it's December and hypothermia is a reality. "Until yours dry off." A loan, then, not a gift for keeps.

[71st_victor]

She takes it, not exactly the kind of self-sacrificing person who's willing to give up perfectly good clothes when something looks warm and inviting like that. She tugs the sweatshirt on and starts tugging on the long johns, wiggling into them while never taking her eyes off of Jess, trying to determine which district he's from. Three, maybe? He looks like he's got the brains behind those looks to figure something out.

Three's usually good for something, even if they can get really annoying. "Which district are you from?" she asks. "And why'd you get shoved in the jail cell? What'd you do?"

[booklegging]

'District'? Where has he heard that before?

Jess takes his first good look at her once she's mostly covered up. His sweater sits a little big on her; small but scrappy is his initial impression of the girl, who he'd peg at a few years older than him, give or take. She's obviously not self-conscious about taking care of herself if that happens to mean stripping down in the middle of a crowded building, populated by strangers.

That alone tells him something about her. She recovers quickly for someone who'd just crawled out of a public fountain, latching onto what this place is right off the bat. There's an element of familiarity in that razor-quick readiness. He's seen it before. He's heard this kind of talk before.

He narrows his eyes at her thoughtfully, tone matching the thought in his expression. "I'm probably not from the kind of district you're thinking of," he starts to answer, playing off a hunch, "but I know some people who might be. If I said 'Gamemakers', would that mean something to you?"

[71st_victor]

She narrows her eyes at him, trying to figure out where the closest weapon she can get to is. If she needs to use her fists, she can do that too, but it doesn't exactly carry the same emphatic force as a face full of axe does. Her spine goes straight, though, and she shifts her weight on her feet so that she's ready to spring forward, if she has to. "Every single person in every District knows what a Gamemaker is," she says with mild disdain, wondering why she's being treated like an idiot.

"What's your point?" And why is he acting like his district is some kind of secret. "Are you from Thirteen?" she asks, because she figures maybe if you're underground, it's about the only good reason you have for not knowing this kind of thing.

[booklegging]

So his hunch had been right--she and the other two here in the village are familiar with the same terminology. The likelihood of them being from the same place increases in leaps and bounds based on her reaction: a shift in awareness that draws her up straight.

Other than a fire poker or a heavy book end, the closest weapon is probably on Jess' person, though the last thing he wants is for the girl to mistake him for a threat and come at him. She might hurt him, but he might hurt her, too. It's the latter that concerns him more than the former. He doesn't want to agitate someone further when this freak show of a town is agitating enough.

"That's just the thing, I'm from a place called Alexandria, not a district," he explains further. "But I've heard of what you're talking about from a pair of people. Finnick and Annie? Do those names ring any bells? They're here."

[71st_victor]

Johanna keeps a steady, straight face, refusing to give anything away. She doesn't want anyone to know where her allegiances lie. Internally, she's grateful for Finnick and even happier for him that Annie's here, somehow. Sure, it's not exactly the sterling team that's going to help bring down the Capitol, but at least she's got someone here to watch her back and prevent her from getting killed when she's looking the wrong way.

"They're past victors," is what Johanna says instead of offering a personal connection to them. "How can you not be from a district? Isn't this a prison? Some kind of repurposed arena to keep people in check?"