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)
ten_fwd2015-07-05 09:58 pm
treadswater) wrote in ten_fwd2015-07-05 09:58 pm
Entry tags:
Gym - OTA
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.
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.
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She's been a little off-center herself lately, likely because of all the excitement that's been going on. However, she still manages a smile and a polite nod when she thinks she's caught Annie's eye. She'd tip her hat if she were wearing it.
"Howdy."
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Then she smiles, shy but friendly enough, and lowers her staff as if she'd never been twirling it.
"I'm not, uh. In your way or anythin'?"
She has an odd accent, does Annie Cresta. Mostly Mexican, but some Texan there, too, all marinated over hundreds and hundreds of years.
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"Beggin' your pardon, I didn't mean t'surprise you. Don't worry, I don't take up too much space."
She only just crests a meager five feet in height, and her shape is as petite as her stature. But there's strength in her shoulders and her hands that betrays that friendly expression and those sweet smiles. There's no doubt she could cause trouble if trouble came looking.
"Where you from?"
It's impolite asking before doing a proper introduction, but her curiosity gets the better of her. Her own accent is proper Southern, a little high for the usual Texan drawl, but edged with grit and gunmetal. There's something a mite familiar about Annie's, though it's not something she recognizes offhand.
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"Uh, District Four. Panem."
She pauses, then smiles a little wryly.
"You're probably not gonna have heard of it."
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"You're right, I haven't."
There's some apology in her voice, but it's mostly friendliness when she holds out her hand.
"Miss Kate Barlow, pleased t'make your acquaintance. I come from Texas, back on Earth."
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"Texas- Oh! Okay. Um. Actually, District Four is a bit in Texas. Mostly in Mexico, that's the big I come from. It's a, a.
Future-thing. I guess."
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"S'a pleasure, Miss Annie."
She sucks in a soft breath, eyes turning a little wide.
"Oh! S'that right? Well, I s'pose that'd explain the drawl you've got. 'Bout what part of the future are you from?"
She's had enough experience with stories like this now that it doesn't alarm her quite so bad to think about it. Texas is still young, if she were being honest. Other territories have changed names and borders even in her day.
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"Longways from most folk here. Even on the USS Enterprise. But we've lost the old dating systems, so I can't actually tell you."
Which isn't helpful.
"Hundreds and hundreds of years, probably."
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She's never met anybody from so far in the future before. Her teacher's heart, grown from childhood and fed on stories of adventure and intrigue, swells at the thought.
"What's the future like?"
It's asked as a matter of course, as Kate's expression lightens.
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For a moment, she just blinks, somewhat thrown. She doesn't want to get into how awful things are. How much fear, how much hunger. But neither does she want to lie, and just report the good.
"I'm not sure, actually," Annie says, finally. "I mean. You're from the past. What's that like?"
It's part honest question, part rhetorical point.
"We, uh. All our ships stay firmly on the water, though. I'll clear that one up."
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She isn't sure if the question made her uncomfortable, or if she just wasn't sure how to answer; however, something tells Kate not to press right now.
"True 'nough, I suppose. Our ships stay in the water where I'm from, too. Automobiles are only brand new, an' not many folk where I'm from have one."
It's still frontier land.
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Which is where the strength in her otherwise short body comes from, years of working with nets, boats, waves.
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"You're a fisherman? How lovely! A dear friend of mine spends most of his time on boats. He's always tryin' t'get me out there with him."
Or leastways he was, before they ended up in space. But there are those hollow-decks where they can make anything they want come to life, so why not the sea?
"Well, from the sounds of it things aren't so different for you an' I. I prefer my horse to the train, truth be told. But there are some benefits to travelin' that way."
Like the car where they keep the money and goods.
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It's hard work, when you're actually working. But she misses it, so her voice is a little wistful.
"Horse? You...you know how to ride a horse? What's it like?"
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It's been years since Kate worked the ranch, but she'd still identify as a cowgirl these days even before she would a teacher or an outlaw.
"Is that how y'learned to use one of those?"
She gestures to the staff Annie's been holding. That's one weapon Kate's never picked up herself.
However, Annie's next question pulls all thought from the gym and what's in it, as delight dances in her eyes. It's easy to see how much she loves riding.
"I do. I'd daresay it's the closest thing t'freedom us gravity-lovin' folk will ever get. When you're ridin' with the wind whippin' in your face an' that powerful creature movin' with you like you're one body, you feel like you could just — fly away."
She closes her eyes.
Her heart aches to see Beaut again. She's not been this long away from her horse in years.
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"Sounds a bit like sailing," she offers. "A little. When the waves are big, and you're just riding them, and there's this moment where you're not connected to anything..."
She misses it.
But she can't go out of sight of land any more.
"Same with surfing. Um, do, do you know what that is?"
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"It sounds wonderful."
Her brow furrows at Annie's question, and she hums in thought. It was only three years earlier in Kate's time that three Hawaiian princes brought surfing to California. The news hadn't traveled that far East yet.
"No, I don't think so. What is it?"
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Well. It is, and it isn't. If the waves are that big, there's a storm brewing up, but sometimes even during those times, there's something beautiful and fun to be found.
(As long as everyone gets back to land before the waves increase, anyway.)
"Ohhh, okay, so, you get a big board - they're made for this purpose - and you swim out with them into the sea. And as the waves form, you...catch them, and go sliding along them as it breaks behind you."
She pauses.
"If that made any sense at all."
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Her brows knit, and she laughs a little.
"You catch them with the board?"
She's picturing it the way someone would cast out a net, sliding and breaking and — no, it's a concept she's having just a mite bit of trouble with.
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She steps away from Kate, a little, and then adjusts her grip on the staff to point it down.
"So, uh. Here's a wave that's breakin;," she says, drawing a two-sided triangle with curved sides. "Now, this is happenin' all along it, horizontal, but one end can go first. What we do when we surf is we glide the the board along the side of the wave, with it breaking behind us as we go. I mean, sometimes we're caught, and then we're all tumble with the wave. Does. That make more sense? I think there are clips on the archives if, if it doesn't."
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"Huh. I think so. You're ridin' the board like a ... flat boat?"
She glances at the other woman to get confirmation.
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Annie grins at her and, whatever else, the love she has for the sport she's described is clear.
"So, like a boat skims across the surface, so does the board. You can lie down, and you do that to travel out, but once you're trying to ride a wave, you stand."
She pauses, face turning mischievous.
"Mostly, you stand. Kinda thing where you can do tricks."
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"Trick ridin' sounds like somethin' you could do on horseback."
If Annie notices a little of that mischievousness mirrored back at her, it ain't because Kate has experience with that or anything. No sir.
Ahem.
"Oh gracious, that sounds like fun! An' you know how to do this?"
[ooc: I apologize for my slowness, RL has been kicking me pretty hard lately. >_<]
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Annie grins at her. A bright, broad grin that lights up her face, lights up her sea-green eyes. It's a very daring grin. I dare you to do handstands, I dare you to do a flip.
"That I do. Miss doin' it properly, the Gulf's waves are a lot smaller than the ocean's. And, haven't really trusted the holodeck enough here. But back home, on Sunday's, we used to have little competitions. Showin' off who could catch the biggest wave."
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It's the kind of grin she'll see mirrored back at her, given enough time with Kate.
"Don't trust a room that can turn into anythin' you want it to, includin' the great horizon?"
She chuckles dryly. She can understand that feeling. It don't seem quite real, and were she a little less traveled she might not trust it herself.
Still hasn't really learned how to use it, even.
"At least it seems safe enough. I've stumbled into it enough times, an' never had a terrible experience. In fact, a friend'a mine has invited me t'go on a safari in a few days."
She's excited about it.
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