farsickooc | test drive meme #2

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*test drive meme

test drive meme #2

SCENARIOS

01. Settling In

It's been a couple of days since you have arrived and once the fatigue from that multiversal travel has been fixed there is a town that you should probably get acquainted with. At least well enough that you don't get lost every time you venture away from the inn where you are likely staying for the time being.

Down the narrow streets to the south where most newcomers first enter Gazin, the tradespeople have set up their shops. Armourers, blacksmiths, bowyers and carpenters can all be found there, as well a few shady types who cannot pass up the advantage of ripping off an unsuspecting person.

Heading east, one can find the two apothecary shops, a bakery, a herbarium, seamstress and shoemaker. There is also a medical clinic set up and is equipped to care for anything up to moderate injuries.

The northern part of town is the district that most people tend to avoid. It's smelly and dark and trouble lurks in every corner. It's hard not to get an uneasiness that feels like someone is watching you. If asked, most civilians will explain why it is called The Devil's Mouth.

In the west district, it is bright and cheerful and generally happy. Music and celebration seem to happen twice daily, every day of the week with Saturday being the loudest. During that day, the marketplace comes to life with vendors selling their fresh food or wares. In the evening, there's typically a firework show and maybe a drunken fistfight or two that ends with more drinking and some laughter. Sometimes, but not often, trouble from the northern district trickles into the west. Those slow festivities but not for long.

02. Exploring

You have heard people talk about the places beyond Gazin and now you find yourself itching to get out and see them. Be it Vasari Forest or Roselake, you and your trusty legs (or horse) plan to be gone for a week or more. One must always be cautious of the dangers while travelling, however. Bandits and rogue soldiers often cannot pass up the chance to take what isn't theirs. There are also creatures and monsters hiding in wait to curiously check you out or worse, hunt you for their next human-shaped meal.

But, that's all part of the adventure! Take someone along with you and maybe some weapons, too. Make sure one is made of silver.

03. Quest

The Druid known as Bhalris has contracted you to head into the Oren Mountains to find and pass a message along to the dwarf known as Brazmas Steelbelly. What Bhalris doesn't exactly explain is where Brazmas can be found, only giving approximate directions to a certain landmark where a series of clues will be revealed that start an interesting, though perhaps frustrating adventure.

Pay attention to the white raven and other animals along the way. They may be there to help with your journey. How do you tell them apart from the other wildlife that may or may not be dangerous? You can't.

Good luck!

04. Celebration

Impromptu parties are quite the norm in Gazin and it doesn't matter what the occasion is or who it is for. There's music, plenty of drink, dancing and good times to be had.

Let loose and have some fun!

05. Wild Card!

Want something else? Feel free to choose your own adventure or mix and match to create something completely different!

NAVIGATION

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Settling in

Finnick doesn't like the city. It's different from everywhere he's ever been before. It feels like some sort of trick. Local craftspeople doing their trade just like back home in Four, but without the constant undercurrent of fear and the edge of desperation that he's so used to. People here aren't afraid they're going to starve. But neither do they have the overbearing sense of their own comfort and worth that the people of the Capitol do.

He's not actually ready to be around this many people yet. It takes time for a victor to be able to face the world again after they come out of the arena, and he hasn't had that time.

So Finnick is up a tree, above a street corner, far enough from the marketplace that the street isn't thronged with people, but close enough that he can watch, and that's what he's doing.

Exploring (river west of Gazin)

It hadn't taken long for him to decide to strike out for somewhere less unsettling. The landscape is different enough that he doesn't see the arena in quite every shadow, and there's water.

His plan is to trace the length of the river to see where it goes; he's aware he could have asked, but he'd rather find out himself than trust anyone here, when he doesn't trust anything he's seen here so far.

He's still alert to his surroundings, even out in the wild, so Finnick hears the sound of approaching footsteps before he sees anyone coming, and ducks down towards the bank of the river, crouching in a bush.

Celebration

Finnick knows from bitter experience that the best way to get information from people who can't be trusted to give it is to get them to let down their guard. And that letting them get drunk is an excellent way to do it. So he's at the celebration. He's dancing, because he's quick at picking up steps to dances he doesn't know after years of having to learn the trends in the Capitol. He's even managed to barter some fish for decent clothes; his torn and half-discarded uniform from the arena would have been entirely inappropriate.

The patches of pink, scarred skin on his face from the burning gas are less noticeable now than they were, as well. He almost doesn't look like he just crawled out of the arena anymore.

He spends most of his time near the drinks, occasionally striking up conversations with the approaching strangers.

"Hi," he says, with his best, most dazzling smile-for-the-Capitol. "What do you suggest, I haven't had any of these before."

Edited 2021-01-24 12:26 (UTC)

This place was so strange. It wasn't anything like any of the Districts she had visited in her life, and she'd seen them all. But that didn't mean she trusted it. Any of this could be an illusion, a hallucination brought on by the Capitol and their doctors. It only made sense. That was the last thing she remembered before she got here. The sterile rooms where they kept their political prisoners, doctors in lab coats, screams.

She shuts her eyes and shakes her head, pushing the memories away. She can't afford to get lost in her own head right now. Not when this could all be a trick.

She does as she was always taught: she finds water, and she begins to follow it. Rivers meet the seas, and water she could trust. Water she knew and understood. Keeping her footsteps light, she moves with the grace of a dancer through the unfamiliar terrain, sticking to the banks where her footsteps would not be found. For all she knew, she was back in the arena.

Finnick crouched, glad that he still had the trident he'd had in the arena. He's found a good hiding spot; he was a Career, they'd learned that sort of thing until it came naturally. He was mostly covered by the leaves, but it wasn't perfect, so he had to stay still, try not to be noticed.

Until he saw the approaching figure and realized in a moment who it was.

"Annie!" He was no longer thinking about tactics and concealment. He hadn't seen her since he heard her screams in the arena, had been half-convinced he'd never see her again.

"Annie!" Without even thinking, he was out of his shrub and running to her.

The moment she hears her name, she whirls around, crouching down to lower her center of gravity. She didn't consciously need to think about these things anymore; between her training and her experience within the Games, it was second nature. She looks around for something she can use as a weapon against her attacker. Otherwise, she's done for.

She throws her arms up to protect her face, dropping to the ground and rolling to the side. When she comes up, the white dress she wore all those weeks ago to the re-reaping covered in dirt and sand. Then she sees him. The man running toward her with outstretched arms.

"Finnick!" She screams, scrambling to him. If they were in the Games, and she wouldn't put it past the Capitol to do something so terrible like this to them all, then they needed to stick together. Two Career Victors were stronger than one.

Two Careers are better than one, and two Careers who know each other as well as Finnick and Annie are even better. It takes a moment for her to recognize him, to reach past the immediate fear of potential confrontation to know it's him. He hates seeing her scared, hates it most when it's him she's scared of, but she finally looks at him and realizes who it is.

"Annie! Annie, are you okay?"

He hasn't seen her since the Reaping. Since Mags stepped forward to protect her.

Since he'd heard her screaming and begging for help in the arena.

"I thought ..."

He doesn't finish the sentence. He can't say it. He'd said it in the arena, for the whole of Panem to see. He'd thought they'd hurt her. To get at him.

Instead, he holds out his arms to hug her, if she wants it.

"Finnick!" She lunges into his arms, wrapping her thin limbs around him, holding herself against him. "Finnick- no, no, I'm not-- the Capitol- after you went--" Her hand goes to her hair immediately, clutching at the side of her head, a nervous tick of hers. The screams had been recorded, but they had been real.

"Are you real? Real or not real?" It could just be a hallucination. Wasn't the first time. But you couldn't lie when you asked someone real or not real. Even if he was a hallucination, he knew to play by the rules.

"I saw you-- they made me watch."

"Real."

He says it with all the sincerity he can fit into a single word. One arm goes around her back, holding her close, holding her up against him. His other hand goes to hers, fingers brushing gently across her knuckles where she's clutching at her hair.

"I know. I'm sorry."

He buries his face in her neck, drinking in the feel of her skin, of her pretty dress (the same one she'd worn to the Reaping) against his cheek when he turns his head, of her.

He'd hated knowing that whatever happened to him in there, she'd see it. He knows well enough how much the cameras love the most popular tributes in the arena, and he knows that aside from Katniss and Peeta, that's him. Which meant she'd always be getting updates on what the Gamemakers were doing to him.

Eventually he has to lift his head again to look at her, his brilliant green eyes shadowed with concern.

"Are you okay?"

"No, no no no," she tells him. "It's okay. Don't be sorry. It's okay." Her words are earnest as she looks up at him, trying to protect him more than anything. He already worried so much about her.

She doesn't let go of him, holds him as tight as she can because the tighter she holds him the realer he feels. And he is real. It's not a hallucination or a dream. He's there, she's here, and they're together. Wherever they are now.

It doesn't matter. Because they're together.

She presses her lips together for a moment, considering. Was she okay? Were any of them? "Am now." she squeezes him tight. "Are you?"

He could just hold her.

He'd thought he might never get to again. The Peacekeepers had stolen their chance to say goodbye, and the last time he'd seen her she'd just seen Mags volunteer herself to keep Annie out of the Quarter Quell. He'd rewatched the Reaping on television on the train, and it hadn't looked any better packaged up in the Capitol's dramatic coverage. She'd looked like she was helpless, hysterical, and though Finnick knows better, he'd wanted a chance to speak to her. To tell her it would be all right, even if that was a lie born of the bravado of a Career victor. There would have been limits to what they could say in front of the Peacekeepers, but it would have been better than being forced off the stage and marched to the train without the chance to say goodbye.

"If you are, I am."

He'd been so scared when he heard her screams.

Annie and crowds? Not always the best combination in the world. Particularly not, she's finding, when she doesn't know anyone. This isn't District Four. This isn't City One. There's no familiarity in clothes or dialect or gesture. There's no murmured, 'afternoon, Miss Annie'. No. There's none of that. There's not even any of her fellow victors. So Annie is starting to feel a bit...

Unsteady. Trapped.

She makes her careful way over to the tree where she and Finnick had arranged to meet up, carefully carefully trying to control her breathing.

He's not there. That's okay.

Annie looks up, sees him, and climbs the tree herself. It's not the easiest, climbing a tree in a long skirt, but she manages it. It's not the first time she's done it. Once she's secure on her own branch (above him), she looks around and then, and only then, does she say anything.

"Hi."

Usually, Finnick is the one out of the two of them who knows how to work a crowd. He draws attention, and he knows how to keep it on him, to let Annie fade away into the invisibility that can only be brought by being unassuming in the presence of somebody who presumes everything.

Finnick knew that everything he did in the arena was a performance. He assumes that everything he does here is one too. But he hasn't had the energy for those games since he was pulled out of the arena into whatever this is.

Annie understands, though; when she looks up and sees him instead of commenting on the fact that he's up a tree instead of standing there waiting for her, she doesn't comment, she starts climbing as well.

Finnick reaches up, stretching out his arm until he can just reach the branch next to her, curling his fingers around the bark so they're in reach of her if she wants to, for a moment, touch his hand.

"Hey."

Casually, easily, she lets her foot so it brushes the back of his hand. Her shoes are a little dusty from the roads, but neither of them are afraid of dirt.

It's not the same as lacing her hand into his, but they haven't decided if it's safe, yet. Safe to be open. He'd screamed her name in the arena (and fuck them, she's gonna have nightmares about that for months, years) but you could scream for a friend, a friend as good as a sister. It's not automatic that everyone assumes them lovers.

(But she wants-)

"What do you think of them? Down in there?"

They're used to hiding. They've had to hide the whole duration of their relationship, pretending to be friends, linked by the bonds of all they'd been through, but just friends. If they spent a lot of time at each other's houses, it wasn't because they functionally lived together, it was because they needed the companionship of another victor. That's been how they hid their truth from the public eye. It was the only way he'd been allowed to steal the happiness she gave him from the Capitol.

Only if it didn't interfere.

And now they're here.

He lets a finger run along the top of her shoe, then drops his arm back down to a more natural position.

"Hard to get a read," he says. "They're not like District people, have you noticed? But they're not Capitol people either."

Edited 2021-01-28 15:13 (UTC)

Annie doesn't reply at first, just goes, "Mmhm," as acknowledgement. She's been thinking about the issue, too, but not in depth. Not while on the ground, on her own. She gets too lost in her own head to do that somewhere new and strange and dangerous.

The pause between his statement and when she opens her mouth is too long, but that's okay. It's Finnick. He knows how to wait for her.

"More District than Capitol. If you had to judge. They ain't scared, but there's no fakeness going on. No one's aware of camera locations, either." Which both District and Capitol always, always are.

"It's. Weird."

"They're used to working," he says, nodding his agreement to her assessment though he's not sure if she can really see him well from her perch above him. It's another thing that sets them apart from the Capitol. Not that nobody there has a job, but hard work, manual work like fishing and mining and farming is for the districts.

She's right about the cameras, and he makes a soft "mhm," of acknowledgment, in echo of hers.

"They don't talk like people in Panem either."

Everyone with any sense in Panem is always careful what they say where anyone else can hear it. You can't criticize the Capitol where they could hear it. You can't question the Games.

He can't even hold his girlfriend's hand for fear.

She can see him. Not easily, but she's positioned herself so that if she glances down, she can catch most gestures. And it would work, her watching him. Two strangers in this strange land who know each other. She wants to reach out and take his hand, it should be safe enough here after... everything. But that would also hinder movement, and she's too keyed up for that.

"No. They don't."

Then, a little frustrated, "Do you think they're up to anything?"

Are they all playing a game against the newcomers. Do they have a plot. Sinister intentions.

Finnick's always been better at reading people than she has.

He doesn't answer immediately. He's still too uneasy to go for long without scanning the scene below him, for all most people don't bother to look above their heads and people here don't show the wariness of tributes always looking for the next source of danger. Down and to the left, across, up and to the right, then again in reverse.

No immediate sign of danger, beyond the immediacy of how strange it all is.

While he's studying them, he lifts his hand again, using peripheral vision to reach for her foot and bump a loose fist against the side of her boot.

"Not that I can see," he says with a single shake of his head. His hand drops back down to rest on his own branch. "Could be things going on that I can't read, but."

He shrugs. "There's a feeling I don't get from them. I know how it feels when someone wants to use me."

Edited 2021-02-15 13:59 (UTC)

And Annie trusts that. It's not that she can't also read people - she can, she does, and they both use it. But her mind can be a vicious thing, conjuring threats and mockery where there's none around. If he says there isn't a threat, she's more inclined to trust his assessment than hers.

At least, for people they meet face to face. She's still better at patterns. But they haven't been here enough for that.

It's making her itch.

"I can't...I can't work out what's going on," she admits. Frustrated.

It should feel more like a threat.

Just days ago, he'd been in the arena. He'd let Mags give herself up to protect Peeta and Katniss. Then he'd wished himself home with Annie and instead had found himself, somehow, here. Here with a gash in his leg and a tracker in his arm and without his allies. But, somehow, with Annie, and without any attempts from any of the other people he's seen here to either kill him or seduce him.

"I can't either."

And he hates that. It crawls under his skin like the fear when he's meeting a new patron for the first time. Not knowing is dangerous. But the fear of not understanding isn't the same as a feeling of being threatened by the people around him.

"I hate not understanding."

"I know." It's said quietly. Probably she didn't need to say anything, either. But she does know. She knows that creeping tension of ignorance, how it can constrict your chest and your mind. They don't have enough data.

They always had enough in Panem.

Carefully, casually, Annie swings her boot to gently tap his shoulder. Just enough to get his attention without startling him like a wary cat out of the tree.

"Should we ask? The, um. The other ones. Like us."

The other strangers.

In Panem, they knew what their situation was. It sometimes changed, like when their lives were thrown into uncertainty by the announcement that the Quarter Quell would feature the victors: them or their friends. But they'd known. They were always in danger. Their relationship was a secret, on pain of punishment. Finnick was available for sale or gift, on pain of punishment. Annie was too crazy to face the media, on pain of being dragged back into mentoring and the annual season of the Games in the Capitol. None of it was what they wanted, or what they'd have chosen if they weren't victors, if Snow didn't have the power of life or death over Annie's family, over Mags, over Annie herself. But they'd known what it was.

Here, they don't know which, if any, of those proscriptions are listed. Except that Mags is dead, and there's one less person for Finnick to try to protect.

At the tap on his shoulder, he leans sideways enough that he can cast a glance back up at her. His brow knits in thought and he sits with the question a moment before he answers.

He doesn't know if he can trust them either, but they at least don't have the same connection to this place. If there is anything hidden going on, they might not have the same need to play along that people actually from here would feel.

"Think that's a good idea. Not from here, they might not be loyal to this place if things are going on."

Every so often, Jon gets away from the stables and goes out into the countryside surrounding Gazin. He's just as comfortable in the open spaces as he is within the town, and it reminds him more of Winterfell. Sometimes he stays out longer than other days, and most times he does some hunting, too.

Today he's out wandering in the company of a wyvern; he'd finally relented and given the thing a name. He has a bow and arrows slung over his shoulder, for hunting, and they're in no particular hurry as they head for the river.

He and the wyvern are walking at a similar pace at the outset, but as they get closer to the river, the wyvern surges ahead, splashing into the water, right past Finnick without seeing him. The wyvern is in the middle of the river, ducking his head under the water playfully, before Jon can even try to dissuade him.

"Surmund! Get back here!" This directive is, of course, ignored, as Surmund flaps his wings joyfully like a bird in a bath.

At the sight of the mutt (it's huge and of all things he's not expecting a mutt like that) Finnick flinches and starts sneaking away from the river, trying to get away without the thing noticing him. He's never seen anything like this, unless it's some sort of nightmarish twist on a lizard, and he doesn't know what its abilities might be. Hopefully it's not a determined tracker.

Finnick startles at the shout, and spins around to see a young man of around his own age, armed with a bow and arrows. Armed but without them currently in hand.

"It has a name?"

Edited 2021-02-14 15:49 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit to get the Viking drunk, but he's a dozen horns in and feeling pretty friendly, despite maybe not looking like he is. He's scarred and tattooed, looking every bit the part of a battle-ready warrior as each son of Ragnar Lothbrok was.

Ubbe gives the guy a serious look over before a big smile spread wide across his mouth. "You want to go with the ale, my friend," he says, grabbing two cups and holding one out to him. "Not as good as where I'm from but just as strong."

He will toast the other once he has it firmly in hand.

"Skål!"

The big guy with the braid definitely doesn't look friendly, but neither do a lot of the Career victors, and Finnick's not intimidated by them. Of course, they don't have scars like this guy does, because the Capitol doesn't like scars, and they certainly don't talk like this guy.

But if Finnick's learning to do things like the people here, that includes learning what happens at parties.

(So far, it's better than Capitol parties, doesn't make his skin crawl with too many eyes on him.)

The ale looks a little like a few of the things he's had in the Capitol, though he's always preferred wines and spirits over beers.

Finnick echoes the word the man says, or does his best to do so anyway. It's completely unfamiliar in sound, but he knows the tone well enough. It's a toast.

"Skål." He takes a long drink; the guy's right, it's strong enough, and it's far from the worst thing he's ever drunk after spending so much of his teenage years drunk on black market spirits.

"It's strong," he agrees. "Thanks."

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test drive meme #2

Finnick Odair | The Hunger Games | canon point: from the arena, near the end of Catching Fire

Exploring

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they are doing such a good job of settling in...

they are very normal and sensible people

nothing odd to see here at all

just two "friends" sitting in a tree spying on people, move along

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exploring

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Celebration!

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