Annie Cresta | Victor of the 70th Hunger Games (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
treadswater) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
farsickness2021-02-28 09:07 pm
treadswater) wrote in farsickness2021-02-28 09:07 pm
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.
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.
arrival.
It reminds her of home.
Thereâs 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 sheâs nearer to its source, to approach on foot. Itâs 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 Sonaâs reins over the nearest tree branch with murmur for her to wait there for her. âAre you all right?â she asks, moving to kneel beside the girl.
no subject
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.
no subject
The fractured sound to the girlâs 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.
âI donât think you are,â she answers, softly. âBut thatâs okay. I can help. If you allow me to. Youâre not back home. Wherever that was, whatever youâre afraid of there, youâre not there anymore. They canât get you. I know it sounds...â Crazy, is how it sounds. âHard to believe, but itâs true. Youâre 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.â She keeps her voice soft and gentle, as though sheâs trying to talk down a skittish horse, or one of her brothers. (Not Ned. Nedâs the sensible one.)
âWe need to get you out of the cold, and out of the snow.â She reaches up and undoes her cloak, pulling it off and holding it out in her arms. âBut this should help a little, until we can.â
no subject
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?"
no subject
âIâm Lyanna Stark. And you were home, yes.â She doubts she will be believed but sheâs going to continue to try. âI was, too.â In a way. Being with Rhaegar felt as much like home as Winterfell had. âUntil I found myself standing by strange signs in a place Iâd never seen before. And Gazin is nowhere on any map of Westeros.â
She doesnât know if the girl will believe her, but sheâll continue to try. She needs to get her somewhere warm. Somewhere safe.
no subject
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.
no subject
Next. To get her to the inn. âCome with me, all right? Weâre just going to walk a little ways into town. Thereâs an inn, with a fireplace. Warm food, and drink.â She needs to get her somewhere warm, before hypothermia sets in worse. Even if she doesnât STAY, sheâll at least be able to warm herself.
no subject
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."