farsickness | have we ever thought that being lost is our destination?

Entry tags:

have we ever thought that being lost is our destination? | Locked + OTA

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHEN: 28th February, first part of March
WHAT: Arrival
WHERE: Gazin
WARNINGS: Anxiety attack in Arrival section + general anxious thinking in other threads. Will add if anything more shows up.
NOTES: Feel free to add a wildcard situation if you want! Annie will be scoping out Gazin a lot.

ARRIVAL | Locked to Lyanna Stark

She wants to be anywhere else. She wants to be somewhere away from the television, away from her house, away where she can't be found at all. No one. No journalists to ask her awkward questions because oh no, oh no, it's the Quarter Quell and the arena will soon be down to the final eight. And Finnick will live. He'll live past that. And then Annie is going to be in world of trouble because... Because...

Because they made the jabberjays scream in her voice. Because Finnick had been mad with desperation.

Because Snow had made the rules very clear and then he'd given the nod to force whats-his-name, that fucker of a Gamemaker whose name she can't remember right this very fucking second, she's so fucked, they are so fucked, and they hadn't done anything wrong. And now, and now there'll be journalists asking questions and Annie had bolted from the living room as soon as her feet let her. Bolted where? She doesn't know.

She just wants to be somewhere else-

The cold shocks her. Her feet trip as snow suddenly clings to her ankles, and Annie stumbles onto the ground. The cold, wet, snowy ground. Her gasp pulls cold air into her lungs and she starts to cough at the sudden icy conditions. Maybe it's a good thing: it stops her from screaming.

In a daze, Annie reaches out to push herself up from the ground, her other hand still clutching her shawl to her chest. She'd. She'd been running through a doorway, down her hall and, and had something blurred? She can't remember. But she can't have been drugged. Her steps had moved smoothly from one to another. No pause. Just suddenly... This.

Snow. A forest. A wooden crossroads and a cold wind chilling her through the thin cotton of her blouse.

Now I really have gone completely insane, Annie thinks, and she starts to laugh.

LATER | OTA

Gazin is strange. Annie can't make sense of it. She has a room now, on a loan from the tavern. She'll have to pay for board in a week. She has clothes. The faded dress is too big, the stockings patched and mended, the boots will need a repair soon, the cloak smells musty. But they are clothes and if she puts them over her own blouse and skirt, she's warm enough. It's enough. It's enough to be another data point because oh, no, the Capitol would not put her in such things. She knows how the Capitol works, how the arena fashion works, and none of this is what they'd do with her.

She's worn out from her bout of hysterics in the forest, so for a few hours that first night, Annie can be found in the tavern's main room listening in on conversations. Watching the dynamics at play. Trying to work out what, actually, is going on.

(When she goes to bed, she makes sure the door is blocked and she already has an idea of where to run if she has to climb out the window.)

The next few days, Annie can be found walking around Gazin. She's put on that old cloak but only sometimes wears the hood up. It restricts her vision and she is still jumping at shadows. Maybe this isn't all some new and excitingly detailed hallucination, but she's on edge enough that she's risking the cold to broaden her field of vision.

She visits shops, including a jeweller to get a price on the bangle she's least attached to. Not that she trades it in just yet. You only do that if you can't afford to bargain, and Annie has a week. She can look around to see where she'd get the best price. Once she can talk without nervousness, without her awkward laugh. She walks around the market, still watching, and one day, she even ventures out to the river. If she's to pay the loan, she'll need money, and trading bangles will only last her so long. She can fish. She can.

She'll just have to work out what she can fish in this ridiculous weather.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lyanna spends a lot of time in the forests surrounding Gazin. Hunting, gathering supplies, doing what she can to earn a little gold towards the Stark’s homestead, here in this world. Winterfell the second. But also simply because there’s freedom, there. She can ride where she likes, when she likes. (And drink, and fight, and any number of things that would have earned her disapproving looks from most of her brothers.) And there is nowhere she’d rather be than riding through the forest on Sona’s back, the wind in her hair, the cold filling her lungs.

It reminds her of home.

There’s the sound of laughter, of all things, from somewhere off to her left, and she urges Sona in that direction at a canter, dismounting when she’s nearer to its source, to approach on foot. It’s near where she appeared, when she first arrived, and she wonders. if someone else has found themselves in a similar circumstance.

She catches sight of the slight redhead lying on the ground and she loops Sona’s reins over the nearest tree branch with murmur for her to wait there for her. “Are you all right?” she asks, moving to kneel beside the girl.

It's not a happy laugh. It rarely is, when she's like this. There's something fractured in it, she always thinks. Later. But maybe that's just her. How it sounds when she can't stop.

There's movement, and it's enough. It's enough to get her moving, even if it is just an awkward half roll. Something that once could have been a smooth, trained movement to get away from an attack, but now her limbs are confused and she's still clutching her colourful shawl to her chest. Her stepmother made it for her. She's not letting it go. So Annie winds up sprawled, backside on the snow and legs trying to get her to her feet. It's a position that just heightens how small she really is, and she knows it.

"All... all right?" Annie asks, breathless, laughter still caught in her voice. Her eyes are bruised with exhaustion and too bright, all at once, and she's staring at the other young woman like she's evaluating a threat.

Mostly, because she is.

The dark-haired stranger could be younger than she is, although a comfortable life can make it hard to tell. The Capitol always thought Annie herself looked old. They'll try to hide that, though, when they come. When the journalists come with their hungry eyes and hungrier cameras to rip her apart. She'll be put into her most Capitol-version-of-District clothes and have her face painted and... and...

This woman is a stranger. She doesn't sound like the Capitol or any of the Districts and Annie?

Annie is lost. She wants to scream. Her voice wants to laugh.

She presses her shawl to her mouth to swallow whatever might come out, and just stares at the stranger with ocean-dark eyes.

Gently, Lyanna. Gently.

The fractured sound to the girl’s laughter, how she tries to get away, like a skittish animal, to end up sprawled on the snow staring at her with wide eyes and her shawl pressed to her mouth hammers that home in a spectacular fashion. She needs to tread carefully. Whoever she is, she is scared and frantic and LOST. And not dressed for the weather in the slightest. She needs to get her to let her help her. Get her into town. Somewhere warm.

“I don’t think you are,” she answers, softly. “But that’s okay. I can help. If you allow me to. You’re not back home. Wherever that was, whatever you’re afraid of there, you’re not there anymore. They can’t get you. I know it sounds...” Crazy, is how it sounds. “Hard to believe, but it’s true. You’re not the first to find herself here. My brother and I have been here for a few months, now, and there are others who have been here longer.” She keeps her voice soft and gentle, as though she’s trying to talk down a skittish horse, or one of her brothers. (Not Ned. Ned’s the sensible one.)

“We need to get you out of the cold, and out of the snow.” She reaches up and undoes her cloak, pulling it off and holding it out in her arms. “But this should help a little, until we can.”

There are details in front of her. Important ones. What this woman is wearing. How she is speaking. Her face. No make up on her face. How she's speaking. It's important. It's crucial info and Annie knows it.

But she's so tired. Exhaustion is tripping up her thoughts, pulling her down like she's caught in a rip. She needs to be smarter than this, but there's too many words and too many things that have gone wrong. And... And Annie's so cold. It's going to mess up her ankles if she stays in the snow. It shouldn't be cold like this, only the ocean should. But she knows what to do in the cold like this, if you can. You get out of it and then you call for help.

She tries to get up again, this time more controlled, and this time she manages to get to her feet. She can run if she has to. She can grab the crossroads sign for stability and if she has to run, she can push off it.

They can't get you, this woman says, and Annie really can't help that scoffing laugh which bursts out of her.

"How, how do I know they haven't already got me?" There were other words, but Annie was too breathless and too tired to get them to stick in her head. "Put me in an another arena for a twist, huh? Or, or some other game? I was."

She gulps for air. It's too cold, everything she's breathing in. She's so cold. She's so angry. Because she has done everything the Capitol ever asked and, and, and now?

"I was home. And who the fuck are you, lady?"

Edited 2021-03-05 11:48 (UTC)

When the girl rises to her feet so does Lyanna, her cloak still held in her arms. For the girl to borrow once she’s earned a little trust enough for her to take it. She’s still calm, her voice still gentle, giving the girl plenty of space. “If they’d gotten you I wouldn’t be here. I’ve never heard anyone speak with an accent like yours in all of Westeros. And I don’t know what this... arena is that you’re talking about.” Unless it’s some strange sort of name for a tourney. But it sounds different. Lyanna’s own accent is very much the Stark accent. The accent of Winterfell. Those that were born and raised there.

“I’m Lyanna Stark. And you were home, yes.” She doubts she will be believed but she’s going to continue to try. “I was, too.” In a way. Being with Rhaegar felt as much like home as Winterfell had. “Until I found myself standing by strange signs in a place I’d never seen before. And Gazin is nowhere on any map of Westeros.”

She doesn’t know if the girl will believe her, but she’ll continue to try. She needs to get her somewhere warm. Somewhere safe.

Even in Panem, with all the different district accents, District Four's is uniquely thick and noticeable. And Annie's been making no attempt to modulate it. But... But it's known. It would be such a stupid thing to lie about. Annie's not like Finnick, she can't read people like he can.

And Finnick's not here.

Because he's in the Games. In the arena. With Mags, who could read people, too, except Mags- And. And Finnick...

Something in Annie crumples.

She retains just enough sense to grab the cloak. But to put it on she needs to put the shawl down, except no, she won't, it smells like home and safety, and she's so cold, so cold, she should put the shawl on then the cloak-

Instead, she just stares at Lyanna and shakes.

"I don't understand," Annie whispers.

“It’s all right. It’s a lot to deal with,” Lyanna reassures her, soft and gentle. The girl is lost and cold and scared and doesn’t trust her at ALL but she hopes that she’ll at least let her get her somewhere warm. “I’m going to put the cloak on you.” Her voice is still gentle and calm, but still authoritative. She moves closer, slowly, so she doesn’t startle her, and then, if the girl lets her, she takes the cloak from her and wraps it around her shoulders. Once she clasps it so it stays put, she steps back, to give her space. It swims a little on her, but it’s warm from Lyanna’s body heat and will help keep some of the cold at bay.

Next. To get her to the inn. “Come with me, all right? We’re just going to walk a little ways into town. There’s an inn, with a fireplace. Warm food, and drink.” She needs to get her somewhere warm, before hypothermia sets in worse. Even if she doesn’t STAY, she’ll at least be able to warm herself.

Not only is Annie district-born, but she's from the fisheries themselves. Her momma was a shrimp-boat captain and some of Annie's earliest memories are of being out on the water, on that boat. Boat-safety, sea-safety, has been drilled into her since before she could walk. And part of that?

Listen to instruction.

But alongside that is all the Career training she went through, and all those years of watching the Games, analysing them. Analysing behaviour. And if Lyanna wanted to kill her, she'd be dead already. Wouldn't she?

Yes. She would.

So Annie stares at the other young woman for a moment three beats too long, and nods. She gives up. She's cold and confused and wants to scream, but more than that, she wants to cry.

"Okay."

Warm. Warm sounds good. So she lets Lyanna adjusts the cloak around her and it... it helps. Her ankles are still going to be all kinds of fucked up, but it helps.

"I. I'll come with you."

Gazin seems to have inherited a group of cagey people, if the person from the other day in the woods and this girl are any indication. Bucky doesn't mind it; he's well versed in being cagey and he doesn't want to tell someone how they handle being dropped into a brand new place without anything but the clothes on their back. It's been a shock for him and he's used to facing everything.

Still, this girl seems cagier than most and he tries to give her enough space before he speaks to her. There's nothing scarier than having someone mostly silent sneak up behind you so Bucky makes sure to be loud enough before he calls out.

"Not used to seeing people trying to sell jewelry. Usually they're buying it. You've got spares or something?"

The trouble is-

Well. Okay. There are multiple aspects to the trouble Annie is in. But here's a couple of them. Point the first: her mind is a bastard and plays tricks on her. She can easily mistake a casual glance for something studied (even mocking), pull together coincidences into a paranoid pattern until she's jumping at shadows and convinced of conspiracy. Point the second: she's a stranger here in this city, in clothes that only sort of fit her, with an accent that is completely different to anything she hears around her. She's worthy of some glances even without it being suspect. Point the third: Annie still has no idea what the fuck is going on and she trusts absolutely no one here.

It's a problem.

It's a problem because when this man talks to her, she still jumps, a little, because she's been too busy trying to filter out everything to assess an actual threat that she missed him. And he's not a small man.

She possess enough of herself not to fiddle with the bangles under her sleeves when he asks about them, at least. And that's a loaded question. No she hasn't got spares, and maybe she's desperate enough to be cheated. Yes, she has spares, which means she's rich enough to rob. Which is the line she's been walking all today and Annie? Annie is tired.

"I might," she says, after a moment of looking at him. Assessing him. Eyes to hands, shoulders, build and stance. Then back to his face. "But if no one sells, what's everyone buying?"

(She sounds so painfully, painfully District Four to her ears right now.)

Edited 2021-03-03 10:18 (UTC)

"That's a fair question," Bucky says. She seems nervous to him, drawn in and assessing him from head to toe. He's done that too when he's assessing threats and since this girl is slight and small, he might look very intimidating to her. It's not what he means to do, genuinely, and he has no idea how to make himself look like less of the threat he is. He opens up his body, holds his limbs looser.

"I think people make things here but bartering makes sense too. I was just joking around with you, though. It's hard to make gold when you first get here and you don't know what's going on and forgive me for assuming, but you look new."

He knows that better than most, having hidden for a while before getting stumbled upon by Merlan and offered a job almost on the spot. It's good work, the forge, but it doesn't seem like something this girl might be able to manage. She might surprise him, though.

"Let me spot you some. No payback. Just a gift?"

The man seems to be... trying, at least. That's something. There's only so much anyone can do with their physique, she knows that. So it says something that he's trying to present himself as less a threat. It could be a trick, it could be genuine, but it's...

It's something.

Annie looks at him for a moment, and decides to take it. You have to take risks in the arena. And she's smaller than him. She can run fast and duck if she has to.

"A gift? Like... lunch, or, or a pair of boots that fit?"

She'd thought about asking him what he was offering, but then thought better of it. Open questions can lead to open answers. She needs something solid to grasp. And she can take either food or equipment.

"I could get you both. I have more than enough money to do it," Bucky says. People had been kind to him when he first showed and while he'd been suspicious of it at first, he'd come to understand that these kindnesses had been genuine and not tricks. He doesn't know if he can convince this girl of the same but he can at least offer it and see if she accepts the gift.

"If you want, we can look for the boots now and then I can take you to lunch afterward. It's the least I can do after people took care of me when I came here. For what little it might be worth, you can trust me."

Strange words to give instead of receive but it feels good to be on the other side of it for once.

"Both?" That startles her, and startles her enough that she briefly reconsiders taking this risk. It seems overly generous. Too generous. It could be a trap, to get her to be in debt to him and oh does she know where that can lead.

But-

His clothes look sturdy. He looks decently feed. He doesn't look hungry.

And... And she can still run. Which is why she wants the boots.

She survived the arena by running into a pack until it was time to split (and she's not thinking about the details of that point, no no no she is not) so she can... She can follow that. Here.

"That, um. That'd be... Nice? Yes. It'd be nice. Thank you."

Then, summoning up her courage, she steps forward and offers her hand. Small, like the rest of her, but with a wrist thickened by years of training and manual labour.

"I'm Annie."

Bucky's hand dwarfs hers when he takes it but he shakes it firmly all the same. He doesn't want to minimize her strength because anyone who comes here on their own and doesn't immediately go insane has some measure of strength that he doesn't think most people have. He wants to respect that.

"Bucky. And don't worry about it. It's the least I can do for someone. I wouldn't be where I am if people hadn't helped me," he explains. "Here and back home. I don't think there's any shame in that. It's nice to be able to pay it forward for once."

She can tell - generally - when someone is trying to intimidate her. Sometimes, she's too paranoid to be accurate. But usually, she can tell. And he's not. He could. He's a big, strong man. But he's not, and he's not being condescending, either. Like she's breakable. It's a good handshake. She appreciates it.

"Bucky," Annie repeats, putting it to memory. It's one of the more normal names she's heard here. And his accent is not completely unfamiliar. Still mostly off, but not as odd as others' have been.

"I... Yeah. I can get that." She's being honestly, too. You pay things forward because that's the only way it all functions. You get lucky, you pay it forward to help others. She's done it herself, when she can.

But. It's not a strategy for the arena. No, it's for the districts. Which is interesting.

"I was, uh, wondering. How do people earn their way here?"

"Some people make things," Bucky explains. "But I'm not talented like that so you're not going to see me blacksmithing or making jewelry any time soon. What I do is physical labor - I work out at a forge and keep firewood chopped, that kind of thing. My buddy works on a farm."

He assesses Annie and her slim form and decides manual labor might not be her thing. Still, he can be surprised, and she might hold an inner strength he's not considering.

"There's work in the tavern too - bartending, waitressing. There's plenty of stuff. It's just that you have to ask around."

arrival.

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shopping

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L A T E R

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