sixthiterationlogs | ψ they are the hunters, we are the foxes

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ψ they are the hunters, we are the foxes | OTA MEETING

WHO: Finnick Odair
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: Evening of January 20th
OPEN TO: EVERYBODY! Kate and Finnick will be doing their best to make sure everyone ~~is summoned~~ knows
WARNINGS: ~~Who knows with Finnick?~~ Nothing expected.
STATUS: Open!

It's late in the day by the time Finnick and Annie return to the village. They've pushed the timing as late as they can: while the auroras are still lighting up the night well enough to see by, they do nothing for the cold that creeps deeper under Finnick's skin with the sinking of the sun. And they definitely do nothing for the snow that had begun to fall again while Finnick and Annie were in the cave, their light dimmed somewhat by the heavy clouds.

The Careers need to get back to the village, and night falls early, now it seems to be something like midwinter.

They'd discussed whether or not to tell the villagers what they'd found. Finnick had thought they'd be giving up a vital potential advantage, but ...

Annie had been right that hiding what they'd found would damage their standing, and while he doesn't care about their reputation here much, he does care that Annie thinks they should be trying to get themselves closer to the villagers, not further away from the community. It has seemed to be the point of their gifts.

So when they make it back to the village at around dusk, they don't skirt around the houses like they usually do, sneak their way through the edges of the woods and find a roundabout way to get back to their house. Today, they go straight for the crossroads at the centre of the village, and straight into the Inn.

Finnick needs to find Kate Kelly, because she knows how to make things happen around here, and if they're going to tell everyone what they found, they need the villagers to gather.

"Kelly," he tells her when she finds her, "We need to call a town meeting. There's something people should know."

So it is that as night falls over the rooftops, gleaming green in the aurora-light as it bounces off snow, people who arrive response to a summons to the large main room of the Inn will find Finnick standing at the front of the room, holding a sketchbook. His ever-present spear is resting against the wall next to him, just next to their meticulously sketched map of the canyon on the stolen curtain.

There's a new mark on one side of the canyon walls.

[ This is your standard mingle-type meeting post! Finnick will have an OTA comment but feel free to mingle, start your own things, threadjack, whatever. ]

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Meeting

Two people went out to the canyon. Two people explored the cave and found the strange metal room that somehow has power when nowhere else in this place does. Two people studied it and analyzed it and discussed it. But only one of them is any good at drawing, and only one of them is any good in front of a crowd. That's why it's Finnick at the front of the room, Annie's sketches and notes in hand. That's why Annie is sitting off to one side, where she won't draw attention. But as always, she's there, where she can see Finnick and he can see her. Not that he really looks, but ... he's never far enough away from her that he couldn't, if he wanted to.

It's Finnick who addresses the meeting once enough people are there. He stands in front of the group with a studied ease from a decade's worth of life in the public eye, interviews, media appearances, public speeches, cameras in his face and strangers shouting things to him.

Speaking to the village doesn't faze him.

"Earlier today Annie and I found a cave we've never seen before in the canyon walls on the western edge of the canyon. It looks like the earthquake broke off some sort of rock formation that was blocking it from view."

He opens up Annie's sketchbook, and holds it up open to the page on which she'd drawn the general appearance of the strange metallic room they'd found.

"We found another observation room."

Afterwards

After the discussion has died down and people have started to leave, Finnick is, unusually, still there. Partly, he doesn't want to leave until enough of the others have gone that he can feel secure about not being followed home, but also, he's watching, and thinking, going over what's been said in his mind.

He's leaned casually against one of the walls, toying idly with the knotted cord bracelet on his wrist. He's not approaching anyone, but if anyone wants to talk to him about what he and Annie saw, or just to say hi, he looks approachable enough, insofar as he ever does.

In fact, if he catches your eye and smiles, his smile now looks less plastic than it did for the group as a whole.

Honestly, Peggy's been worried about the canyons for a long time now. Ever since it felt like she'd been deliberately stranded out on one of the ledges, it's something she's been thinking a lot about. The first group's trip into the rocks had been suspicious enough with the paper and the monster, but to hear that there's some sort of second observation pod is enough to make her realize that they really at the mercy of someone else, some guard or scientist or cruel, wicked person.

She has to wonder what it is, which of those options, and she tries not to let her mind fixate on that, but after hearing Finnick speak about it, Peggy's back to feeling like the war is still on and she has nothing to do but fight it, all over again. She needs a drink and it's at the meeting that she pours one for herself, trying to figure out her next steps.

It feels like she's sat back for too long, she wants to organize and attack, do something. You can't win a war if you just defend your territory and never go on the offensive. "Something has to change," she murmurs, half to herself, but knowing that she means it with all her heart.

"Agreed," I say with a slow nod. It's past time to admit to myself that I've been living in a bit of oblivion. Not without reason -- There are more and more people arriving, and I happen to be one of the best-qualified to make sure they all stay fed, to teach them how to feed themselves. But there's a bigger problem here that needs solving, and I haven't been giving it nearly the attention it deserves.

"But we have to be smart about it," I continue. "They're watching us, we know that. They could be watching us right now, for all we know. I don't think it's an accident that we've discovered these pods. This place is too ordered for that. Some of us have been gathering info, but I think bringing all that info together, having an official place to compile and organize what we learn, that would be a good place to start. Start looking for patterns."

Because, what I don't say but what we all surely know, is that sheer force is not going to get us out of here, if it's possible to get out at all.

"You look weirdly calm for a dude who just discovered a secret pod probably used to monitor his every move," Veronica says as she steps up and leans back against the wall next to Finnick. In the past, he'd been so vocal and emphatic when they've all gotten together, it strikes her as a little odd now to see him so relaxed.

She arches an eyebrow with a bewildered little smile. "Is this smugness?"

He'd been right, after all. From the beginning he'd been insisting they were being watched.

He's heard of town meetings, in places other than this, but never attended one. They had never seemed so vital to survival before. Plus he's already in the inn when the others start gathering and sees no reason not to be there. He wants answers; this is the way to start getting answers. He finds a spot to stay out of the way and expects that others who know more about this place will have more to contribute than he will. But that doesn't mean he can't learn a thing or two.

Then a few words catch his attention. Another observation room. It hadn't taken long after his arrival for him to discover that it's basically a consensus among the group that they're being watched, and now this seems to confirm it for sure.

Unbidden, memories of earlier observation rooms push their way to the front of his mind. Ones at the tops of towers, fitted with guns as if the people they were observing were going to be able to put up a fight of any kind and the men in the rooms were going to be in any kind of real danger. A room behind glass, observing things he'd only wish on his worst enemy (ironic, considering his worst enemy had been on the other side of that glass). He can feel the tattoo on his arm burning again, although it's been there for decades.

Other voices bring him back to what's happening here and now, with effort like that of what it took to climb out of the fountain. Only this time it isn't literal drowning. When he speaks, it's to no one in particular, almost not expecting anyone even to hear and respond.

"Another? There's more than one?"

Edited 2017-01-22 04:54 (UTC)

The man standing closest to him arm-crossedly shrugs, leaning in slightly toward Erik to speak quietly back. (Thinking Erik had been speaking to him—or deciding to seem to.)

"I think there may be another in the Greek ruins. Accounts are vague."

He hadn't gotten to that part of his sweep yet but it had just been pushed higher on his agenda.

He couldn't quite pinpoint what it was about the other man that made him add aloud, "I'm thinking of taking a look there tomorrow."

Town meetings are useful, he won't deny that, but just once he wishes that one of them could be because someone's got some good news. The weapons had been, he supposes, or at least they'd been useful. The meetings since then, the ones about strange creatures in the woods, or ruins occupied by what are supposed to be mythical creatures but are now very real, those are the sorts of town meetings he wishes they didn't have to have. When are they going to have a meeting for someone to announce that they've found a way out of this infernal place?

He'd glanced over the makeshift map when he entered the room, noting the landmarks he'd drawn himself, and the familiar ones put there by others, and the new one in the canyon. He'd been all up and down that canyon when working on the map for Peggy, and he knows he hadn't noticed anything there. This is going to be another one of those kinds of meetings, isn't it?

Yes. It is one of those kind of meetings. At this point he's wondering if there will ever be any other kind of meetings. He'll probably swing by the canyon at some point and take a look at this new location himself, or at least talk to the ones who found it. Not right now though. Right now he's still working on his mug of tea (he wishes he had more access to coffee) and settled in his seat at one of the tables. "Do you suppose anyone will ever get to share good news at one of these?"

He hadn't expected anyone to answer, but not that someone has, he'll go with it. "There are Greek ruins?" He hasn't ranged far from the main areas of the town yet. He hasn't found need to, really. There's plenty of firewood to be chopped right near here, after all.

"At the Greek ruins or this new one?"

There's one thing niggling at her thoughts that Peggy is having trouble shedding and Mark has touched on it, briefly. "If they are watching our every movement and this is all some coordinated effort on their part, how can we know that we're not playing exactly into their hand?" Even now, as they speak, how can they know that their plans aren't being scribbled down by eager observers in their own little unseen pod that hasn't been revealed to them.

Patterns, though, would be something for her to sink her teeth into. "I agree one centralized source of information is important," she says, tapping her fingers in absent Morse code, gibberish messages as she just lets her mind ramble forward. The unspoken question, though, is, what about a source of information that they also don't have privy to?

"The schoolhouse could be a good place to compile everything," I suggest. "I know some of you have used it for other things, but maybe we could share? The chalkboard on the wall could be really useful. If we can develop a system, we can start keeping track on there, at least for now. It's a good place for anyone to walk in and see everything listed out. And that helps, too, if something happens to one of us. The more people with this info, the better all-around."

Paper is what we really need, but it's always in short supply. Although...

"Does anyone know what happened to the wrapping paper that came on all of those gifts? We could use it to take notes, write on the back side of it." And there'd been enough that it could last us a nice, long while.

Finnick looks calmer than he really is, partly through artifice and partly through the fact that most people don't realize the way he's fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist is a nervous habit. Veronica has a point, though. People have been denying what he's said about the Games since he got here, and seeing some of them start to take notice feels good.

There's no real triumph in it, though: it's a grim sort of satisfaction. But he shrugs at Veronica's question.

"Least now I know."

Not in the way he'd entirely expected, but ... they've been waiting for something to happen, to show some obvious part of the Gamemakers' plan.

"I've had my every move monitored since I was 14. It's hardly new."

"The ruins first, I think," he answered. "I'd expect the new one to have others examining it for a while," he nodded to indicate the rest of the meeting, "after this. I'm sure the old one has been too, but when it's an option, I like to form my own opinions before looking at others' accounts."

"For what that's worth," Veronica replies of confirming they're being watched. There seems so little they can do about it right now -- Or hell, at any point -- and it's hard to not be a little overwhelmed by that, particularly when she really looks at the kind of people trapped here with her. Superhero or teenage girl, you'll still be pinned in place like a butterfly on a board.

"They watched you because you were in some sort of screwed up game, right? You still think that's what this is?"

It's still hard not to assume that everybody here knows the things he knows, knows him, and his history, and what it's like in Panem. It had taken him a long time to even begin to concede that yes, they could really be telling the truth, that this really was some strange meeting of worlds.

He's still not sure what to think of that. The thought of a world where the Hunger Games were unknown instead of an annual fact of life, where people could have enough to eat without gambling their children's lives, where so much of what happened to him would never have happened, seems too much to be true. It's the revolutions's dream, not some place's present.

Finnick studies her, his eyes a little lowered so he does it from under his lashes. She really does seem genuine, just like so many people here do, a sort of genuine he's no longer used to seeing.

"Because I won the game," he agrees. "I'm famous for it, where I'm from."

Not that the media attention or the public scrutiny is the worst part of that fame. No, the worst part is the part he can never talk about because it will reveal Snow's dark truth, of what really happens to a victor too beautiful for the Capitol to keep its hands off.

"I don't know," is his quiet, but entirely honest answer to her second question. "There's a lot that's familiar. But in the Hunger Games, the Gamemakers would be watching us on camera, not in person. That's not their style."

Alex is reasonably certain that the man isn't talking to him when he asks, but considering the topic, Alex can't help but answer regardless. "It's not terribly shocking, really." He says with a soft voice and London vowels, his tone contrasting plainly with the furrowed brow and worried frown currently gracing his face.

Because it isn't shocking, not really, and yet Alex still can't figure out whether he's reassured or concerned by all of these building signs of apparent loss of control. Or if he should even trust them.

"Considering the breadth of the operation I've observed so far, there's almost certainly a group of people at work here, not just one." His eyes cut to the side to actually look at his company, and it's a face he's only vaguely familiar with, which at least serves to remind Alex of first impressions and that perhaps attempting to salvage some illusion of being a normal teenager might serve him well here.

He ducks his head and rubs a hand sheepishly against the side of his neck and adds awkwardly, "But what do I know?" With a half-hearted shrug.

Moana had no idea what was going on but she had followed when she’d heard that there was a meeting. These sorts of meetings were familiar to her though for once she didn’t have to take a role that put her in the center of the room. It was interesting watching from the outside and bit by bit she felt her outlook expanding. Moana found a comfortable place to stand out of the way as Finnick took and spoke. Her eyes moved over the room, catching sight of both new and old faces. She didn’t know if someone was formally in charge in this village but watching gave her an idea of how those around her saw the hierarchy.

The more she listened the more confused she grew. She didn’t know what anyone was talking about and there were pieces that didn’t make sense to her.

The most difficult point of comprehension was that she had no bases of comparison for electricity or metal rooms. She tried to infer but there were to many blank spaces to form a clear picture in her head. The imagines that Finnick showed helped but only a little bit. The other was that the room was abandoned but they called it an observation room, how would they know that for sure? Also how would people use the room? Obviously it wasn’t being used when they found it and they must have found something like this before since no one looked particularly surprised about this news. She tried to understand fully but there were so many threads that didn’t connect in Moana’s thoughts that it just confused her more.

Her brow furrowed as she listened, wondering if this would ever start making sense to her. There was so much that she didn’t know.

"That makes sense." There's a need to work together here, but that doesn't mean that they should just take someone else's word for something. Besides, more pairs of eyes are always good -- one person may notice something that someone else missed.

"It never hurts to know as much as possible about the place where we've found ourselves."

"This would be quite a bit of work for one person to do by themselves," he agrees. Which doesn't make it any easier to stomach the idea of multiple people doing this to them. Worse, in fact, because one person is easier to defeat than a group of them.

"If these are empty, and therefore not in use at the moment..."

"Exactly."

…On that same odd impulse that he made Cassian speak to Erik in the first place—perhaps perceiving someone who could be very helpful, or wanting to get preemptively close to someone who could equally be very dangerous—and either because some of the scarlike old emotion lines in the other man's face were not unfamiliar enough by half—Cassian offered his hand. "I'm Cassian. If you're interested, you'd be welcome to join me."

Edited 2017-01-24 04:44 (UTC)

For the most part Kira has hung around at the edges of the room, letting the pit grow in his stomach and anchor him in place. There's no fear of public speaking nauseating him as he pushes up from his seat and raises his bandaged hand for Mark's attention, a bit wan and swallowing once before he speaks.

"I have a box of it," he says, voice raising as he speaks to cross the distance. "The crumpled ones are kindling, but I saved the neater bits. And I've only seen it once, but I think the board had a stand, we might be able to carry it here.

"And we could have it face a wall, just enough room to get in between and check it? I don't know what they're using to watch us, but I can't imagine it would get a good angle on the board like that."

Watching him, Veronica can't quite tell if there's pride or sarcasm behind his words when he talks about winning, about being famous. If she didn't know anything about his past, if he'd not made perfectly clear in previous meetings how he feels about what he'd been made to go through, she might almost assume he was gratified in having won. It's difficult to not want to know more, but she knows from her own experiences that it can be a fine line, talking about terrible shit like that.

Chewing briefly on her bottom lip, she considers him a moment more, the hushed shift of his voice and the plainness of his admission -- He's not entirely sure anymore, either, and somehow that's even more frightening.

The devil you know, and all that.

"This might be a little presumptuous, but... Do you think you would be willing to sit down and describe it for me? Like, the details. I've been trying to keep notes on what goes on around here -- The really strange stuff, but also anything that sticks out, really. Anomalies. I don't know, I guess I just think it might be useful to compare. Because if this is one of your games, that's at least someplace to start from."

"That's a good point," I say with a nod, although I have to admit that there's a cynical part of me that wonders if it's possible to keep anything from who or what is keeping us here. Some of the things we've experienced both individually and collectively go well beyond conventional spying.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try.

"And with what Jo's already started to compile in here, it might be easier to bring the board in, have that be an extension of her map." I don't know what all she's got in that book of hers, but I know she's been keeping notes since the beginning by whatever means she could find.

"I don't know if anyone has any chalk, but there's limestone to be had around here as an alternative."

"So we've located a second observation pod, then? Were you able to bring anything out of it aside from Annie's sketches? Any documents or evidence of the same? We weren't able to carry things out of the last pod," Helen pointed out.

"And more information might lead us to the identity of our captors."

Even as he nods in turn, he's lifting his head to frown at the corners of the room--knowing there are no cameras he's seen, possibly no cameras at all, but unable to shake the worry. Unable to frame it some other way, because there are both evil creatures and mysterious observers in the canyon, tugging him between the mystical and technological.

Flor's father would say aliens and launch into his conspiracy theory about the pyramids. Kira lets the next question drag him away from that line of thought: sufficiently advanced forms of science are indistinguishable from magic, and all that shit.

"You could ask Miss Kate, she had some when she showed me a bit of the inventory here. We could start saving good bits of char from the fires for writing and sketching, too."

"Erik." He shakes the hand when it's offered. "I could use something new to do with my time." And he would like to get a look at some of this himself. It's better than just taking someone's word for it. That implies a level of trust that he hasn't felt in a very long time.

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ψ they are the hunters, we are the foxes | OTA MEETING

During & After the Meeting | OTA

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Monana @ Meeting ~ OTA ~

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During the Meeting

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