the stronger you climb

[71st_victor]

WHO: Johanna Mason
WHERE: The Woods
WHEN: Midnight-ish, January 16th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Violence, Auroras, Aggressive Lumberjacking
STATUS: Open

---

There's one convenient thing Johanna's figuring out about the whole 'night's as bright as day' thing. For someone who doesn't really sleep so well, it gives her the opportunity to get out there and do some of her work when everyone else is sleeping, which means that she doesn't have to run into crowds of people and do the whole smile and act civilized thing. Sure, yes, she's trying to be nice for Finnick's sake, but honestly, people kind of suck after a while. This is the kind of peaceful silence that she does well with.

The sparks are starting to get a little annoying, especially seeing as she can barely touch her axe at times without shocking herself after, but the auroras? Well, Johanna doesn't exactly get wowed by natural beauty or anything, but even she has to admit they're pretty incredible.

At night, when they're lighting up the sky like day, they're amazing. She'd scrambled to the top of one of the trees to perch up there and eat some jerky she'd stashed in the boughs, readying herself for another night of private hunting and wood chopping. While the wood, she's happy to share, the food is treated, prepared, and shared between herself, Finnick, and Annie. She might be willing to go along with the whole 'play nice' theme they've got going on, but she's going to make sure she stays alive before anyone else.

With the last of her food done, she descends quickly, boots slamming onto the ground as she absently twirls both her axes as she walks along, not caring what she looks like, aiming to find a little something to carve up and start drying out before she gets back to chopping up the logs. Might as well make the best of a sunny night, after all, and what better way than getting to use the sharp ends of her axes?

Comments

[candor1]

Cassian's been in and out of the inhabited spaces enough to see the varied effect the unusual atmospheric conditions were having on people. They don't bother him terribly; there's no such thing as a natural light cycle in space, and your circadian rhythms are shot to hell on every new planet. And sitting and watching them has been unusually meditative. (Until one of the remembered voices starts commenting on it and he has to get up and do something else.)

He's just reached that phase and got moving again, when he emerges from tree cover into a clearing, just at the same moment, across the way, as the women twirling some (sparking?) axes.

He reflexively freezes. He doesn't try to run, hide, or make a first engaging move, but—though he has no apparent weapon—his stance is recognizably a pre-combat one. Capably so.

[71st_victor]

Johanna sees him, of course she does. It's impossible to really do a good job hiding yourself when the lights are out this brightly, not unless you've got Peeta's magic painting skills on your side. Even then, he might be a good artist, but he's got nothing on the way the sky is throwing off constant colors. Setting one of her axes into the nearest stump, she drapes the other one over her shoulder, assuming a stance that'd be right at home in Seven.

It's questioning and ready to fight, but just relaxed enough that it doesn't look that way. "See something you like?" is what she taunts him with, offering a quick wink afterwards.

[candor1]

With a will, he straightens up into a more relaxed posture himself. This isn't a combat zone, as far as he knows they have no reason to fight. And he's unarmed anyway.

So would try to go for one of her ax— Stop. Pure reflex, no intent.

He gives the only countermove he knows for her obviously well-used and quite effective psychological-disarming technique. With an apparently affable but not-at-all-propositioning smile, he answers, "Yes." (—be just as confusing back.)

…Well, why not… "Chopping wood by atmospheric anomaly, huh." He nods to the axe on the stump. "Want an extra hand?"

(Here to incorporate and cooperate not fight. Self-contradictingly, sharing the weapons could dissipate threat of use. Wouldn't mean the opposite if she disagreed, just interesting to see if she might.)

[71st_victor]

"Sorry, but cute as you are, no one touches my axes but me," is Johanna's firm reply, seeing as she's possessive of her things, but especially the things that she's best trained with. She feels safer, knowing that she has them, which means no one is going to get a hand on them. "You can have some, but you're not getting a hand on these," she says with a tap on the handle.

"And the atmospheric anomaly's got nothing to do with it," she says, lifting her chin stubbornly, determined to hold her own and make sure he understands she doesn't need the help. Using her foot for leverage, she hauls the axe out of the stump and gives him a pointed look. "In District Seven, you learn how to do this from almost before you can walk."

[candor1]

He quirks a mirroring smile at her, even while running the vocabulary she just gave him through his mental database. He's been able to tell who might come from comparable or related origins here based on how they refer to them. (The Tellusian "Earth" residents tended to name local cities as if they were their own planets, e.g.) But he hasn't heard anyone use the term District.

He is, though, momentarily reminded of Finnick. Something in their movement, postures, reflexes; combat training of possibly relative methods, but more for both covering it with an aggressively personalized attitude or style; not just about combat itself but about the performance, spectacle of it; for their opponents' benefit or some internalized other gaze…? —an ingrained instinct for being watched…

Or perhaps it's just because Finnick's the last person (—and one of the only beings ever—) to call Cassian 'cute'.

Spreading his hands in peaceable accession, he deliberately kneels to pick up a piece of debris wood. "I've been doing it the inelegant way. Just trying to be useful. But the inn doesn't seem to go wanting for firewood."

[71st_victor]

Most people are out there doing it for the goodness of the community or maybe to be helpful. Johanna's help is a byproduct of getting to use her axe, making herself feel powerful when she's anything but in this strange place. "Eventually, it might even warm up, then everyone's just going to have to adjust their skillset." Lucky for her, she knows at least five other things you can use axes for, and only two of them are potentially life-threatening.

"So what are you doing out at this hour, if you're not inelegantly chopping wood?" she asks, hefting a heavy log up to split it, relishing the thunk as the sharp point of the axe contacts the stump.

[candor1]

He considers her for a moment. Though he doesn't move, somehow he seems to see far more about her from a few seconds' scan than he possibly should. Then, with the air of a shrug, he reaches into an inner pocket and pulls out a piece of paper—except more like parchment… possibly something he made himself from… tanning something? whatever he'd done was not a method she [i.e. anyone at her civilization's tech level] would likely know about, hard to tell whether the material had originally been fiber- or flesh-based, natural or synthetic. And hands it to her.

It's a hand-drawn map of the village and surrounding canyon. There's nothing on it that isn't common knowledge. In fact, some areas are still blank, even though everyone knows what's in them. The bits filled in, though, are done so… well… obsessively. The amount of detail… From measurements (done in a slightly unfamiliar but easily parsed metric) to visual observations to natural and inhabitant-set resources to other analyses… It's like he trying to memorize every square foot of this place.

And underneath all the other information, the bones of it, is clearly a battle-strategic mentality. He could pick the best approach, exit, defensible position, and stealthy circumvention of anywhere in the canyon.

"If I have the luxury," possibly a word used ironically though his voice is affectless and mild, "of a small enough area, I prefer to make my own uninfluenced observations before cross-referencing with others' interpretations. I haven't found anything yet that someone else hadn't already discovered. But if nothing else, it's a good baseline for gauging others' perspectives."

(…And/or once he runs out of their circumscribed ground to explore, he'll go absolutely crazy, unless he comes up with the next project.

…Or he'll have to actually start… living in it.)

He indicates one of the blank areas. "That's where I was heading today." He raised an eyebrow at her. "If you won't be chopping wood all day, you'd be welcome to join me."

Because, as with others he'd met here (e.g. Erik), he could tell immediately she was someone who had equal potential to be a adept ally or a significant danger. For either eventuality, best to build some kind of understanding straight away.

(Not that anyone seemed inclined to make enemies here… which was good… but for circumstantial reasons. Trusting in that alone was abdicating too much agency. And who knew what their hosts' eventual gameplan would be.)

They don't even know each other's names yet. But he's seen a lot in how she wields that axe, and he's offered a lot in giving her a look at his map.

[71st_victor]

Well, it's late, and Johanna's been chopping for long enough that her shoulders are beginning to ache, but she feels like the main font of aggression has been dealt with enough that she can abandon her task and focus on something else. Besides, who knows what else she might find in this long-abandoned arena (because, as far as she's concerned, that's exactly what this is). "Well, sky's lit up like day," she says, "and I'm awake." She'll be awake for hours yet, seeing as she doesn't exactly sleep much anymore.

Sleep is for people without nightmares and with the luxury to be able to drown themselves in something to forget their issues. She's got limited alcohol and needs to ration it. Hauling the second axe from the stump, she gives him a nod.

"Lead on."

[candor1]

That she doesn't care who he is or where they're going could indicate a submissive or trusting nature. That's not the case here. With her, he can tell it's that she doesn't consider him any threat to her whatsoever.

Confirmation: he's glad he's working on some kind of foundation here. He tucks the map back in his pocket and obeys her command.

There are several areas to pick from but he decides to head southwest.

He also decides to see if she'll break the silence first, and with what.

[Choose your own adventure: (a) she does, (b) he will if she doesn't, (c) neither do and you can take us all the way to the spring without them talking ;-) ]

[71st_victor]

She keeps quiet most of the way, mainly because she doesn't think that small talk is worth the oxygen. Mostly, she's keeping her eye on the sky above them and how it's lit up with the kind of lights that she hasn't seen before. It's also unnatural, the kind of thing that she should probably be more suspicious about, but unless someone's really good, she'll be able to take care of herself. "What are you trying to find?" she eventually asks, about ten minutes into their walk.

If it's just mapping things out, it's necessary, but boring. If it's actually getting to do something about whatever they find, she might actually do this again instead of finding it useless.

[candor1]

His voice is utterly emotionless. But surely it's some kind of joke…?

He answers, "Reality."

He might elaborate later, if their interactions go that way. Wanting to have his own observations and measurements as a baseline before aborbing anyone else's impressions or interpretations or (can never rule out) lies, both to collect the least influenced data, then against which to measure those same impressions/interpretations/accounts, and so the people giving them.

It's also possible (if unlikely in a place this small with a population so diverse and so unifiedly motivated to break it all open) that he could find something no one else had yet, but which he was less likely to find if he had expectations of what to look for.

With actual humor, now, "Possibly a bath. I hear there's a hot spring. Though shelving that part for another day, obviously."

[71st_victor]

If it's reality he's after, being stuck in a dome with captors influencing their behaviours and decisions probably isn't the best place to be. It might exist, but it isn't real by any measure or means. She thinks about all the people who lost their minds in the arena (like Annie, but not) and wonders if that's something they ask themselves every day. "Well, reality isn't going to appear out of nowhere, but the springs definitely exist," she can guarantee.

It looks like they're heading in the right direction, too, which is helpful. "If you soak in 'em long enough, you even start to notice other things. Shinier hair, clearer skin." She's been going there, not just because of those effects, but also because it affords some privacy. "If you want to go to the springs, you don't need a map. I can lead you."

[candor1]

He seemed to get the spirit behind her first nine words, since he answered—lightly, as if in self-indulgent musing to go with a walk in the woods— "Any reality, even unlikely or unwelcome ones, have limits." —rather than potentially anticaptivity strategy. Limits could mean rules, laws. It could also mean weaknesses. Loopholes. No matter how much of their surroundings may be controlled or changeable by their unknown hosts, that in itself was a reality that could be analyzed. And how else to gain any mastery of it.

Whether he was demonstrating it to her intentionally or in purely instinctive, subconscious recognition, it was certainly the familiar way of communicating when you think someone may be listening.

He raises his eyebrows at her description of the spring. "Really…? I was under the impression it was water." …Well, why not. See if he was wrong and her planet was connected with ones he knew: "Not bacta."

[frankensteinian]

He doesn't sleep much either, auroras or not, and there doesn't seem to be anything he can do about the sparks flying around everywhere. He's too new here to know that anything is different from how it usually is, and it's not really his concern anyway.

As Johanna gets close to where there are logs for chopping, she can hear what sounds like an axe on wood, as if someone's already hard at work making firewood. When she gets there, Erik is...well not really doing much work, in fact. He's just standing there, moving his head, and the axe is chopping the wood seemingly of its own accord.

[71st_victor]

Johanna follows the familiar sound, because she knows it like she'd know a lullaby from the cradle. Slinging her axes back in the slings she'd made for them, she rounds the clearing and sees the glint of aurora light off the axe, first, but the fact that no one is touching the handle, second. She's seen a lot of Capitol tricks, but never anything like this.

"How are you doing that?" she demands, wanting to know if it's something she can learn and use herself. After all, a third axe would just be handy in all kinds of ways.

[frankensteinian]

"It's magnetic," is his simple as he holds out his hand and the axe flies to it. "I can do the same thing with anything else that's magnetic, just by thinking about it." He's been warned that powers are reduced here, but so far he has felt no ill effects from using his so much. Perhaps because he hasn't tried it with anything large. Not that he's seen anything that large to attempt it with anyway.

[71st_victor]

Johanna's grip on her own axes tighten, a defiant set in her expression that warns him that if he thinks that he's taking her weapons away from her, he's got another thing coming. "How?" she demands, because she doesn't feel like he's answered that part. "Did someone give the ability to you? Screw around with your brain until you could do something for them?"

If they could do this to people, Johanna shuddered to think what was coming next, in the Games.

[frankensteinian]

He has no need for more than one axe. At the moment. If he did, he'd have a place to find one.

"It's a mutation in my DNA." He takes on almost a placating tone. The last thing he needs right now is trouble. "I was born this way." No one turned him into this. Just took advantage of it after they found out about it.

[71st_victor]

Well, at least that rules out some mad experiment at the hands of the Capitol, though she's not sure it entirely puts her mind at rest to hear that these skills are roaming around out there and she doesn't have one. It would've given her a whole better leg up, both in the Games and outside of them. Johanna would have loved to see a Peacekeeper try and kill her family when she could use her mind to wield her axes.

Of course, she hadn't been there the day it had happened. They weren't that stupid. "So what, you can twirl some axes? What else?"

[frankensteinian]

"It's not just axes. It's anything with a magnetic field." Which at the moment happens to be axes, because they're what's here and what's needed. "I can do any number of things with this ability." And has, in the past.

[71st_victor]

"Where I come from," Johanna says, trying still to stem the jealousy that she doesn't have any talents like that, "they have these things called mutts. Mutations, that they've taken animals and done things to them to upgrade them." The disdain in her voice is purely about the Capitol. "They made birds that could spy and repeat what you say. Dogs that had the eyes of your enemy. Basically, every nightmare thing you could imagine, forced on someone. They were monsters to do that to those poor things."

She's not sure what to think of a place where nature does that to people. "Did it come in handy, at least?"

[frankensteinian]

His own monsters, his own nightmares, they're everywhere lately, and it takes him a moment to be able to reply.

"This, what I can do, it's a mutation, but I was born with it. No one made me that way." Just enhanced what was already there. "It comes in quite handy."

[71st_victor]

Well, at least Johanna can rule out the nightmare of someone holding her down and forcing her to become something else. She doesn't want to think about what the Capitol would like to really do if they got their hands on her and there weren't any cameras rolling for evidence. Then again, if she could turn it around and use it on those same people, it might prove to be one hell of a handy thing. "So? Show me some of it," she coaxes, eager to see.

"Or is twirling axes your big trick?"

[frankensteinian]

"Do you have anything else that's metal?" That would make this demonstration easier, for one thing. The only metal he has on him right now other than the axe is the rivets on his boots, which he can use, but he'd rather save that for the grand finale.

[71st_victor]

Johanna searches around for what she's brought out with her, thinking that one of the bottles of booze she's brought out with her has some kind of metal in the screwtop. Lifting up the bottle of schnapps (she needs to keep warm, it's perfectly normal), she raises her brows. "This?" she suggests. "But if you break it, you owe me a bottle of booze," she warns sharply, not wanting to lose it in the process.