Tis the season...for a lot of boxes? [Presents!]

[turned_to_steel]

WHO: Sansa Stark
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: December 20th
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: Will update if needed
STATUS: OPEN

Sansa had her jaw clenched and her hands buried deep in her pockets, hurrying towards the Inn as quickly as she could make herself go without running. It was tempting to run but she didn't trust the snow that clung to the ground and the fact that there could possibly be ice patches somewhere underneath. She didn't relish the idea of possibly slipping and hurting herself when she was supposed to be going to the Inn to get her first lesson in cooking breakfast.

So she was more than grateful for the heat she felt when she reached the front door and pushed it open to let herself inside the nice, warm building. Stomping her feet, she shut the door and looked up to see if she could spot Kate anywhere. What she found instead was enough to have her eyes going wide and her lips parting in surprise at the sight of boxes stacked everywhere in the main room. It didn't matter where she looked, there seemed to be a new stack of varying heights and sizes. So many of them that she wasn't even sure she could count them all.

It wasn't like the box she had found on her front step, though. These boxes were wrapped in pretty paper of different colors and designs, and all with a tag sitting on top of each one.

Unbuttoning her jacket, she moved to the closest stack of boxes and took a peek at the first tag that was visible to her. She recognized both names and found herself blinking in confusion while she glanced at the second tag. Had everyone else found a way to get presents to give to someone else and she had missed it? She wondered briefly if maybe it was something that had been planned from before she had arrived but why hadn't her brothers mentioned it to her? It was something she was still puzzling over until she found a tag that was intended for someone else but had her name on it as well.

A quick search at another stack had her finding a present that was intended for her.

Still curious and wanting answers, Sansa set her jacket aside and went back to the first stack of boxes. Plucking the first box off the top, she set it to the side and moved the second box to another area. By the time someone came downstairs or came inside, Sansa was making new piles sorted by the name of who the presents were meant for. She thought it would be easier for people to find their presents rather than everyone stomping around poking through every stack and reading every tag.

[ooc: This is a mingle post for people to find their presents if they are located at the Inn! If you wish to, please feel free to have your character find their stack of presents already sorted.]

Comments

[3ofswords]

Kate's wine had succeeded in making him a bit sleepy, but he's more or less recovered from the effort of hauling boxes and preparing a series of lunches for the extra traffic the gifts have brought to the inn. Recovered enough to head back into the fray and start picking up loose pieces of wrapping paper--letting himself take his time, thin hands folding each piece to crisp edges, compact squares to pack into a box for kindling or, perhaps, re-use.

It's soothing, after the wine and work, to do something easy and repetitive with his hands. Tactile, visibly helpful without too much effort. Gathering a large wad of materials, he settles closer to the fire with a couple of empty boxes, and starts untangling and folding the pieces.

The question he overhears isn't new, and by this point, there's a consensus of sorts on the answer. Without looking up from the glossy paper on his lap, he answers, "We all gave each other gifts, somehow. Judging from the scissors I materialized for Credence, something to do with thinking of one another."

When he does look up, it's the fit young man he's seen on his walks by the river, who delivers fish to the inn. He wonders what might have appeared for him from that sparse information, and he hopes it isn't as inexplicably offensive as the stuffed animal he'd thought up for Kylo Ren.

[fishermansweater]

Finnick has seen this young man before, out by the river when he's checking his fishtraps or walking up to the pool at the bottom of the waterfall to try his luck with the spear and trident he's made.

Finnick's voice is quiet when he replies.

"I have been thinking about what things people here need lately." Not only the people close to him, Annie and Johanna, and his gratitude to Kate Kelly for seeing them through the hard period of rain when they had nothing to eat, but people he's never spoken to.

That's unsettling. More unsettling than just about anything else that's happened here, because he hadn't voiced those ideas. They had been thoughts, only.

They couldn't have gotten into his head like that, could they? Or anyone else's?

His thoughts had always been the one place he could rebel against the Capitol, be truly himself, and not who they wanted him to be.

Finnick's, expression, though, shows none of the concern that's racing through his mind. He's had to learn to be too good at hiding his true self for that. So all anyone could see if they were watching him would be faint puzzlement on his pretty face.

[3ofswords]

"I wonder what you thought I need," he says, the tilt of his chin and precise slide of his fingers along a folded edge almost reflexive. Flirtation is a game, a mode of communication, and for all that he isn't in the same universe as looking, the young man is very fit.

It's also a good distraction, he finds, from the existential horror incubating in his gut. "I'm Kira, by the way, I'm not sure if I should apologize if I haven't gotten you anything."