71st_victor (
71st_victor) wrote in
all_inclusive2014-02-03 07:48 pm
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It had taken her a long time to find it, but once she has it in her possession, they'll have to pry it from her cold dead hands to get her to give up the small, but functional axe she'd found on the grounds in a shed. It's probably the remnant of some old gardener, but in her hands, it could be the difference between life and death.
She wishes there were tall trees around, the kind of soaring redwoods that adorned Seven. She'd learned to wield the sharp edge of her blade on thick trees standing hundreds of times the size of her. Meek, weak, and a little mousy, Johanna had learned that everything can fall if you apply enough pressure and cut them down at the right angle. Everyone falls and everyone bleeds.
Johanna hefts up the axe and makes her way outside, careful not to appear too overtly threatening. There are strangers roaming here and she needs to maintain the facade in case she has to play them. The axe has to be hidden where she can find it and she needs to seem like the little girl who frightfully entered the Hunger Games. She makes her way to the English Gardens, settling cross-legged on the ground as she starts to dig a hole in the ground. It's nowhere near six feet deep, but it makes her think of the grave she'd basically dug for herself by joining the rebellion.
Once she gets three feet down, she gets the axe in there, covering it up quickly and dragging over several blue bell flowers to mark the spot in a circle. She wipes the sweat from her face, smearing her cheeks with dirt like a hasty camouflage.
She's going to keep protecting herself, no matter the cost.
Johanna catches movement in the corner of her eye and she softens her posture and her expression, careful not to look too aggressive. She draws her hand over the soil and keeps the shadow in her peripheral vision, always wary. "Did you come to look at the flowers?" she asks quietly, head down, eyes averted.
Meek, weak, and murderous if given the chance.
She wishes there were tall trees around, the kind of soaring redwoods that adorned Seven. She'd learned to wield the sharp edge of her blade on thick trees standing hundreds of times the size of her. Meek, weak, and a little mousy, Johanna had learned that everything can fall if you apply enough pressure and cut them down at the right angle. Everyone falls and everyone bleeds.
Johanna hefts up the axe and makes her way outside, careful not to appear too overtly threatening. There are strangers roaming here and she needs to maintain the facade in case she has to play them. The axe has to be hidden where she can find it and she needs to seem like the little girl who frightfully entered the Hunger Games. She makes her way to the English Gardens, settling cross-legged on the ground as she starts to dig a hole in the ground. It's nowhere near six feet deep, but it makes her think of the grave she'd basically dug for herself by joining the rebellion.
Once she gets three feet down, she gets the axe in there, covering it up quickly and dragging over several blue bell flowers to mark the spot in a circle. She wipes the sweat from her face, smearing her cheeks with dirt like a hasty camouflage.
She's going to keep protecting herself, no matter the cost.
Johanna catches movement in the corner of her eye and she softens her posture and her expression, careful not to look too aggressive. She draws her hand over the soil and keeps the shadow in her peripheral vision, always wary. "Did you come to look at the flowers?" she asks quietly, head down, eyes averted.
Meek, weak, and murderous if given the chance.
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"I can't stand being away from the woods this long. Even in the arena there's...nature. The hotel just drives me crazy."
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"I bet you'd like the snow too. I looked in there. There's trees so big you can't even see around them. I wouldn't even begin to know how to climb them."
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"It's gone," Katniss confirms, rubbing at the spot. There's a disgusting scar there several inches long and it's raised up and red in a way that tells her that it's never going to heal; she's seen enough injuries at her mother's side to know that.
"Not that it matters, I'm sure they're monitoring us here with cameras if nothing else."
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He has to be ready.
"You?"
Something about her makes Chuck want to get the measure of this girl. She's wilting and sweet–but so is Mako, until the occasion says otherwise.
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"Can't imagine why. Just an ecosystem of things that are like as not to kill you."
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"Breach in the Pacific Ocean. Shitload of aliens out to kill humanity for ten years now."
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She said the last in deference to the dirt smear on the other woman's cheek.
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He drops down heavily next to her without saying anything, because he feels exhausted from everything that's happened, bone weary in a way that he refrains from showing anybody usually. No mask in place, no charm, no flirtation. But she's seen all the worst parts of him already, so he figures there's nothing left to hide. Really, she's the only person he wants to see anyway, the only person who will understand what's happening, even if she might not give a damn.
"Jo," he says, his exhaustion bleeding through into his voice. "Annie's here."
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Only because Finnick is her friend does she take a moment to be tactful. "So, is she...all there?"
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"She's from further along than any of us," Finnick answers after a moment. "Near the end of the water. Ten months after the Quell."
Those months -- for him, for Johanna, for Katniss -- they're all life-changing. For the longest time, Finnick had taken for granted that the hardest part of his life had come and gone when he was 14. Now, he knows better. He was never meant to live an easy life, and he knew the revolution wasn't going to simple, but hearing everything that will go wrong in one go makes it a difficult thing to swallow. Too many of his loved ones are hurt in the process.
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He feels so off kilter, so unlike himself, that it's startling. He's having trouble reacting properly.
"We win the war," Finnick answers. "You and Annie are tortured by the Capitol. I die." He doesn't bother with building up to the topic or easing into it. Between Johanna and him, there aren't any bandages. They've both seen too much to bother shying away from the horrors. Winning the war is the optimum outcome; the torture and his death are the worst results.
And in that regard, a very selfish regard, he feels like the only possible advantage for Annie being brought here from so far into their future is a personal one. So they can spend more time together. There's nothing that will make the war easier or less violent, but there is a chance that he and Annie can spend one more night together.
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He really ought to have walked off right then, but Larry had never been terribly smart about these things.
"You're a little big to be making mud pies," he pointed out, squinting against the afternoon sun.
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Everyone is, no matter how charming or kind or seemingly insignificant. They're all threats. "I can help," she offers. "I mean, if you wanted help." Maybe she can learn something about this place in the process.
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"Well," he answered at length as he knelt beside her and began rummaging through the box. "I get paid to do this. I don't mind the help, but you're going to have to let me buy you lunch or a drink or something in payment." He glanced up at her, utterly guileless, and then held out a second pair of gloves. "Otherwise it wouldn't exactly be fair."
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In a chilling way, Johanna thinks they're a little like the Avox servants in the Capitol and it's just one more reason to suspect this place of being another move in the Capitol's chess game.
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"I'm Larry," he added a moment later, casting her a sidelong glance.
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