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

[treadswater]

Leave her hanging? Well. That depends on how long Annie's courage holds out. She's never been able to talk about Finnick like this.

But, well.

Boathouse.

Annie nods and smiles a thanks at Amy for the door - automated, but, yes, it's the thought, and she likes the thought - then her expression turns a bit more serious.

"That's..."

She stops. Fiddles a bit with her engagement ring as she thinks, but more as just something to fiddle with than because of any association.

"I've never heard of anyone thinkin' like that."

[and_she_waited]

No worries, Annie. You spend enough time with Amy and she'll teach you.

Her motives may not be entirely pure, mind. But girl talk is sacred, and held in the strictest confidence.

(Besides, boathouse is just too juicy to let be.)

"You haven't?" she asks, a little quieter now.

She's picking up on Annie's small cues, enough that she knows there's something deeper to it. She just doesn't know what it is.

"You said you were from Mexico? Panem, you called it?" she asks, frowning in thought at the path ahead.

She swings a look back at Annie. "Don't you 'ave philosophers and scientists where you're from? Or really good history teachers?"

[treadswater]

"Hah," Annie says. It's soft, but bitter. It's also a deliberate sound, a scoffing she can make because she's here and the walls don't care about treason or sedition.

"The districts are the body of Panem. The Capitol is the head. We work for the Capitol and the betterment of all, and the Capitol loves and guides us, and... We ain't exactly taught much history. Least not the kind that I've been readin' on the computers here."

[and_she_waited]

"Huh," Amy answers in kind, thinking rather seriously on that.

For some reason, it sounds like she's describing some sort of evil octopus. Definitely not a utopian society.

"Do you like it that way?" she asks a second later.

It seems like an important question to get out of the way.