While it seems as if most of the villagers have vanished off to the shrine, there are still those left behind. Not only the villagers, but also the animals - the pets, companions, farm animals, and animals starting to be tamed. They still need care and attention, no matter what shenanigans the Observers are up to. Not to mention, the other chores and duties. Not to mention, dealing with the sudden vanishing of so many people.

It takes at least three days for the first of the vanished villagers to return: there's a lot to do in the meantime.

Peeta has been dead for eleven days. It's a shocking thing, here, this arena with so little death. And he'd been a nice enough boy. She'd appreciated that. Nice enough, but if ever she and Finnick are dragged back to their correct place and time, he'd had been a powerful adversary. Katniss and Peeta, the Star-Crossed Lovers: no matter who wound up in the 75th arena, it'd be a threat to whomever landed in there from District Four.

Annie has been thinking about that a lot, lately.

She's also been watching Finnick. Finnick, Finnick, Finnick, who can hide so much behind his brilliant smiles, but she knows him in a way that she knows no one else. She can tell when he's upset, and upset deeply. even Careers aren't as inured against death as people think, and he has a soft heart when it comes to the tributes in the arenas. The children. Of which Peeta had been one.

And yet... And yet, it's been days and days, and still, Finnick's more deeply upset than Annie would have ever anticipated. Upset might not be the right word, but she's not exactly sure what would be the right word. And she'd waited. She'd waited and waited, wondering if it's her own brain playing tricks on her, misreading things and people. Except, no. She knows Finnick.

It's been eleven days since Peeta was killed when Annie straightens up from gathering this morning's cluster of eggs and looks around for her husband. There, by the pond they are making for the geese, talking very seriously to the three peahens. She hovers, debating what to do. But no, she needs to ask. So instead of using the front door to go inside, Annie walks over to where Finnick is.

"Hey!" she calls out with a wave, trying to catch his attention without startling the birds. "Uh, you busy? There's something I need to ask you which'll take a bit."

It is morning. Was morning. No, no, it is still morning. Still feels like morning; Annie will look at the sun to double-check, but later. First, she has to get her bearings. Again. A month and a bit, judging by rough time estimate and the clock on her wrist (which she doesn't trust) and zip, whoosh, blink and whoospie-daisy, she's somewhere else.

This time, without the hours of panic which had lead to her collapse a month ago, Annie just reacts. She immediately crouches down, turning her small body into an even smaller target. Just in case.

It feels like the same day, the same time. Morning, what passes for spring in this arena. A quick glance at her watch and it hasn't even been two minutes (if she trusted it, which she doesn't). But she's not in the (her) yard with her geese, filling up their woven pool. She's on a shoreline. A lake, not a river or the sea. It doesn't quite smell like the sea.

She doesn't panic. Not this time. It's all happened too fast. She doesn't yell, she can think enough not to yell, but carefully, slowly, she lifts her head to peer around more.

There.

Finnick.

His backpack is no longer in his hand, but on his back - he must have swung it there after he zipped and blinked and found himself here. He's armed, still. That's something. He moves, fast, behind a tree and all right, good, he can think and she can think and everyone can think and it is fine. They've had the same idea. Hide.

Silently, Annie shakes her head. Not now, she tells her thoughts. She needs to think in a more orderly fashion than the slipping chaos it is so easy to go along with. She also needs to talk to Finnick. The distance is too far to crawl without drawing attention to herself, too many patches, but she can move closer. Carefully, and slowly, and always keeping herself alert to the sounds around them.

It's not that different from the forest around the villages, she thinks. Mostly the same sounds, but with a few strange birds tumbled in there. She doesn't have a sensation of being watched, but that could be wrong.

Once she's close enough to Finnick, lying down with her hands braced against the ground in case she needs to push herself up and run, fast, she tips her head a little and asks, quietly.

"Where the hell are we this time?"

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: Various
WHEN: 2nd - 19th February
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: TBA as needed

---

The Inn, 2nd February

Today, Annie has decided to pitch in at the daily meal-making activities at the Inn. The river has been teaming with fish, and fish is on the menu, and she knows her sociability is inconsistent at best which is... Well, it's not good. She holds to that. Things change here, and she needs not to be an all too convenient outsider if the Gamemakers spice up the arena. Like with more of those awful notes, upping the stakes. It's all too easy to go from 'hurt' to 'kill'-

And it's while she's thinking down that path that her hand slips, the knife slips, and while she's gutting a fish the knife slices into her hand.

"Ow! Fuck," Annie hisses, dropping the knife and jerking her hands away. It's not so much the pain, but she knows the rates of infection in arenas (and, honestly, the docks). And blood is so inconvenient. Except, before she moves away from the table to wash her hands, she stops. Stares.

Spilling out of the fish is something that shouldn't there. Something cylindrical and red.

Holding her injured hand in the air to keep it out of the way, Annie pokes at the red thing with her knife and flicks it out of the fish. It looks like a scroll.

"Um," she starts, looking up and around at her fellow volunteers. "Could someone unroll this for me?"

By the river; 3rd February

It's not that she and Finnick are catching no fish. They are catching fish, just as normal. It's that just as normal is the problem. They shouldn't be. They should be catching so much fish, the village would be running out of salt and firewood to preserve them. Everyone should be eating so much, they'd stage a protest. No more fish, they'd say, even though being sick of something is better than starving.

(Is that what that stupid scroll meant? Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else’s water lily, as if that means anything. It's probably just something to annoy her.

If so, it is working.)

Instead, she and Finnick aren't catching huge numbers of fish. It is Day Three of the river turned silver with fish and moving water, and Day Three of the nets and traps bringing in a perfectly ordinary.

"I don't understand," Annie says once the last net has been cleared and the fish put away into baskets. "We should be drowning in the damn things. All of our gear can't have holes in 'em, or bung lids. Right?"

She looks at her husband helplessly, foreseeing a lot of frustrating repairs in her future and not liking it a single bit.

Various locations around the village: 4th-19th

For the next two weeks, the normally somewhat reclusive Annie is far more obvious. When she walks her birds in the mid-mornings and mid-afternoons, there is a degree of stomping to her boots more often than not. The cast of her face is grumpy, particularly whenever she regards the river. Occasionally, she mutters theories and obscenities to herself when glaring at the teaming water. It's a dramatic sulk for a woman prone to second and third guessing her social interactions, but Annie doesn't care. It's insulting, is what it is. All those fish.

Not that she indulges so much in her sulk that she forgets to be practical, however.

Her walks with her increasingly confused birds often take her to the river, where she harvests reeds and checks on the traps - traps which, inevitably, have a perfectly serviceable amount of
catch and not the feast swimming around. Still, it all needs to be checked and taken in, as normal.

Most days, Annie can be found outside House 57. Sometimes she is engaged in the normal upkeep of her fence and gate, while her geese and peafowl keep her company, but normal her focus is repairs. The nets she and Finnick have woven and use are strung up between trees as she goes over them, row by row, fixing any rips and tears. It pays to do this anyway, but now... Well, now, she's trying to see if the fish are escaping due to a fault in the equipment.

Occasionally, she swears like the deckhand she once was. The cause? either the net is perfectly fine (more common), or there are obnoxiously large tears (rare, yet obnoxious).

She has enough self-awareness to know she's being ridiculous, but for once, she doesn't care. The whole situation is annoying her, and it's nice to indulgence in annoyance rather than fear.

As far as everyone else in the village is concerned, with Annie's annoyance holding back her nerves more often than not, it's far easier to get more than two words out of her should one strike up a conversation. Just be prepared for a certain amount of glowering if she talks about the fishing.