(no subject)

[71st_victor]

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.

Comments

[burn_with_us]

"I came to get outside," Katniss says, watching Johanna carefully. None of the victors is ever who they seem and Katniss always has to remind herself that these are experienced killers, just like her. But, also like her, Johanna and Finnick don't seem particularly interested in offing her so she has a wary sort of friendship. She isn't sure what Johanna is up to but she decides not to let it bother her until it becomes an actual issue.

"I can't stand being away from the woods this long. Even in the arena there's...nature. The hotel just drives me crazy."

[wearethehunters]

"Hell no," Chuck says dismissively. He's been out for a run, determined to stay fighting fit in case some bloody door finally falls open to let him through and back to the Kaiju War. Even in a world without Kaiju, the only thing he knows how to do is fight them or train to fight them or think about new strategies to fight them.

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.

[three_two_one]

"Not really," Felicity answered, tapping away on the Franken-laptop she carried around the Nexus. "I'm not a flower person, or even a nature person. I mean, they're pretty to look at but pictures don't harbor things that sting you, so I try to stick to those. Don't let me disturb your gardening, though."

She said the last in deference to the dirt smear on the other woman's cheek.

[65th_victor]

It isn't a surprise when Johanna speaks when he's still feet away, but then, Finnick isn't trying to sneak up on her. She is absolutely the last person in the world he would expect to be able to sneak up on, and also the last person he would want to anyway.

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."

[digyourman]

"To weed them, actually," Larry replied from where he'd stopped a few feet away, hands covered in dirt-smudged work gloves, his head tilted with mild curiosity. There was something entirely too familiar about the hunch of this girl's shoulders, of the wary flick of sharp eyes completely in contrast with the softness of her voice.

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.