Gym - OTA

[treadswater]

There was a time when Annie was in a gym at least six days out of seven. Ages eleven to sixteen, during her time at the Career Academy (a slightly grandiose name for quite a glorified school club, but it wasn't until Annie was a victor herself that she recognized the self-depreciating humour in the name). Before school and after school, training and training and training. After that, when she was washed out, no gyms, but she kept up the physical activity - and exceeded it, fishing being what it is. As a victor, she ran most mornings, or swum. Worked out. Sparred with Finnick. She'd noticed if she didn't, her mind got worse, her fits of hysteria (anxiety attacks, Beverly had called them) more frequent.

But it's been six months since she's done anything properly physical regularly. When her mood's been stable, she's turned the holodeck into a running track, but that hasn't been nearly anything like five or six days out of seven.

She's twitchy, which goes a way to explain how she winds up in the gymnasium, trailing her fingers over the bo staffs in their rack. She'd been good at spears in the Academy, and although the idea of stabbing now makes her uneasy, she's still good at wielding a staff. She can get her fiancé (tall, built, twice her size and lethal) on his back.

Annie picks up one of the staffs and hefts it, giving it an experimental twirl. It's well-balanced, and she smiles, quiet and shy and delighted.

But despite that delight, and how practically she's already dressed (boots, trousers, simple blouse under her loose jacket, hair braided), she doesn't make any further movements towards any of the practice mats.

Comments

[engineermage]

As soon as they get inside, Kale gives a bit of a gleeful giggle and scurries off to the control panel, running his fingers over it and talking to it. But not in the way most people talk to the computers.

[treadswater]

Annie puts her hands on her hips and eyes the pair of them. Just because Kale is the one currently giggling doesn't mean that Trever isn't up to something, either.

"What have I done?" she asks the room, and the guys, after observing the giggling for a moment.

[reincarnshaman]

Leaving Kale to giggle and talk to the machine, Trever grins at her a horrible terrible grin. "Ever drink whiskey?"

[treadswater]

"Twice. Why are you-"

Oh.

Moonshine.

That's what they are doing, trying to make a still.

She's briefly torn on this, as it's not as if Finnick needs any actual alcohol with his edginess since they've been here.

On the other hand, getting tipsy? Sounds marvellous.

"You pull that off, a lot of folk around here will be shaking your hand."

[reincarnshaman]

"I think we should be able to. Our mum's family has been making whiskey for hundreds of years. The trick is been getting parts and hoping Kale's roommate is amenable. We don't want to get all the parts at one time because that might be suspicious and we're going to try and get them from around the ship from different replicators. But there are some bits that are too big for the little replicators to handle, you know?"

He crossed his arms, still grinning. They're not going to be able to make the family whiskey, mostly because only three people in the family know what it is, but they do know enough ABOUT it to make their own version. Also, making whiskey that's been known to make gods drunk is probably NOT something they'd want to have on the ship.

They're not completely insane.

[treadswater]

Oh, she knows. Taking little bits from here and there, never enough to draw attention, is a way of life in the districts. Be casual, act like nothing's wrong, nothing's illegal, and then you might get away with it. Probably get away with it.

And not every law broken is strictly about survival.

"If anyone asks, I'm saying I knew nothing," she says, which is true, but she's grinning. A little.

changed my mind. Just one of one

[engineermage]

Kale's giggling stops and he turns back to the two of them. "This is perfect. I'll be able to replicate those bigger parts that I needed from here. AND they've got designs for super soakers that I can modify."

Delighted mad cackling ensues for some reason.

[treadswater]

"I think they've got pretty much everythin'. Trick is, what do you do with it all."

Too much possibility, and she's not sure what to do. How to handle it all. Even now, it's tricky. But-

She grins.

"Glad to help out."

[reincarnshaman]

"I don't know. They don't even have money, apparently," Trever said watching his gleeful brother. "It seems to... easy to do things. If you know what I mean?

"I mean, Kale and I are well off, we're royalty for starters, but we still have to work to get things done. Like Kale makes electronic things... and here you can just replicate them."

[treadswater]

"I do, actually."

She hesitates, and then explains.

"I won a lot of money a few years ago. A, a competition." Which she, very clearly, does not want to explain further. "And it's one of the reasons I took up glassmaking so much. I get commissions, or. Did. I don't have to do anything any more. But, it. Doesn't feel right.

I can see, um. There being things in place so everyone can afford the basics. And don't starve. But. Not a lot of push to do things."

[engineermage]

"Nana liked to say that anything that seems to idyllic and perfect probably has something horrible and rotten hiding underneath it," Kale said coming into the conversation somewhat off in a different direction. "Which is what Trev and I are planning on doing a lot of sneaking around and figuring things out. There has to be something more going on than it looks like."

[treadswater]

Annie sighs, a little, and the set of her mouth tilts knowingly. "Yeah, I. I'm familiar with that kind of thinkin'."

The Capitol struck her that way, the times she's been there, although it wasn't until the year of the 71st Hunger Games that she had enough spare time (once Four's tributes were dead) to really appreciate it. The beautiful buildings, the beautiful clothes, party after party attended too by people who had no idea of the cost to the districts, they just wanted to dance their fear away.

"If, if you find anything, would you... Could you tell me? I could share some information, too."

[engineermage]

It's not paranoia if you don't think it is.

"Oh, sure. We'd be more than happy to share information," Kale said, "But what got me suspicious is that they don't want us to have their technology. You heard that when they gave us our welcome speech. Don't steal the technology. We can use it, but we can't steal it? Why?"

Getting onto a roll, Kale continued, "This Prime Directive thing is pure nonsense. We don't want to interfere with your way of life, but we're still going to keep you on this ship that's completely different than your way of life and expose you to technology and medicines that aren't what you're used to. You just can't bring it home to make your world better and healthier."

[treadswater]

You know what one of the advantages of having a habitually unsettled gaze? You can look for cameras and bugs without it being out of character. Annie rocks back a little on her heels and glances around the room, much as she has been doing on and off through-out the conversation.

"Depends if that's their purposes," she comments, although her voice is softer. "They don't quite know what to do with us, so. They could be making up things as they go along, too."

The Capitol would hate her thinking like that, but she grew up on an ocean that regularly made clear it was more powerful than any human government or machine, and she survived an arena where the gamemakers made some very, very big mistakes.

[engineermage]

"Yeah. Maybe. But I've been looking at their records and that prime directive thing has been around for years." Kale shrugged. "Once I get the computer to like me enough, I'm going to get into the classified stuff and see what's up."

Her gazing is noticed. Which is what you get from being trained from a young age to notice these things. However, it's not mentioned, because mentioning these things makes people wary around you. And if they're wary around you then they won't give off as much information.

Kale rocked back on his heels and pushed a few buttons.

[treadswater]

"No, that's not what I meant, um-"

Then she stops, cocks her head a little. Watches him.

Then watches Trever.

And gaze back.

"Like you enough?"

[engineermage]

"I'm a technomage. My knack is, among other things, to talk to technology without having to use an interface like the normal people do and make it do what I want. The ship is very complex though, I've never seen anything like it, so it's taking me time to work my way into her systems," Kale said. "I call that making friends."

[treadswater]

She thinks she's starting to get used to this place: Kale's statement only makes her blink. But, then, she's been here for six moths, and saw what Trever could do with magic. Saw teleporting cats, and she's still not sure how, exactly, her roomate manages to weave baskets, and not to mention just being here at all.

So, all she says is, "Oh."

And then.

"Do you buy her flowers, first?"

[reincarnshaman]

Trever started cracking up as soon as she said that.

He started laughing so hard that he had trouble breathing.

[treadswater]

Annie's expression is complicated: she smiles, at first, pleased if a little startled at the laughter. But people have spent a lot of time laughing at her, mocking her, so the smile falters.

But.

Trever's been nothing but decent to her. Treating her as if she were normal.

So the smile comes back.

"It'd only be polite."

[engineermage]

From the good nature rolling of the eyes Kale is doing, it's clearly he almost sort of finds Trever's reaction funny. In that "I'm going to strangle my brother later but I'm not going to do it right now because there's witnesses and I don't want to have to deal with getting rid of two bodies" sort of way. They have a very loving relationship.

"It's not quite like that," Kale said, glaring at his brother, "It's more like trying to tame an animal. It starts off not trusting you and I have to make it trust me. While it takes a bit longer than perhaps normal hacking, the upside of it is that I don't need to be at a terminal to access information and once she trusts me, she'll pretty much always trust me."