tampered | Mingle Log!

When; July 5th through July 7th!
Rating; G+
Characters; Open to ALL, 4th Wallers and Citizens!
Summary; The celebrations continue, and the Anonymous regime has summoned guests that Citizens might (not) prove very thrilled to see! As opposed to other Fourth Wall events, all visiting characters will have been invited to the City, or they must arrive here of their own will.

Mingle! Explore~!

Log;

There's so much to do and so much to see in this City of cities. From tromping through Xanadu, long walks along the shore, shopping in the Square, hunting in the forest, meeting a contact in the Underground, or getting as many answers as possible at the Welcoming Center how can anyone decide on just one. In three days time so much can be done!

Shops and restaurants are having specials. Happy hour has become happy days in some bars. This is quite the occasion! When the City decides to celebrate, it becomes contagious. Why not smile and strike up a conversation with a stranger? After all, a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet.

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[He says that name as if it comes casually. As if it makes any sense. Peeta doesn't make anything anymore. He's with the Capitol. Peeta probably barely eats anymore. He looks like he's lost fifteen pounds. Peeta's only alive because it tortures her to have to question whether he'd be better off dead.

If he's alive.

No, she didn't take the cake.]

What sort of question is that? [She'd wonder if he was crazy if she didn't already know that he is, a little.] Last night. I saw you last night. It would be difficult enough to avoid each other, wouldn't it, if we were trying?

[The length of rope she pulls out of her jacket has clumsy knots worked into it. They're not as neat as his netmaker's work, but she's new at the art. And she's impatient.]

Peeta isn't here.

[It's not a question, because they both know the answer.]

[He takes it in quickly, all the small nuances and subtle tells that come together to make the greater picture. She trusts him enough to talk without that exasperated, dismissive tone he remembers--she remembers the Quell, at least. (Once, she hadn't, and he and Cinna had been loath to tell her.) The rope. Oh, yes, he remembers that. He remembers how it'd felt when he'd been carrying his own piece around everywhere, too.

(Annie, Annie, Annie. She's safe. She's still got Johanna. It'll be all right now.)

And Peeta--now there's the giveaway. You can always tell a lot about Katniss Everdeen by the way she reacts when you say Peeta's name. He spent a long time learning to gauge that, too.]

Not yet. Who knows how that might change.

[He does, for one.]

Everything changes, Katniss.

[Everything changes. From the Seam to the Victor's Village, from the arena to the floor of a bunker in a district that wasn't supposed to exist. From mistrust to the only person she can say Peeta's name in front of and be certain of something other than Prim's pity or Gale's resentment, or Coin's mercenary calculations. Finnick understands. Haymitch and Johanna too, for all their methods of numbing themselves to it.

It's an exclusive club she'd like to revoke membership of for all involved. Everything changes? She shakes her head.]

Everything changes. But the waiting feels interminable, every time. [Still, he's caught her with the possibilities.] You think... whoever this was, could get an invitation into the Capitol? How would we know? I've been here two hours. That's enough time for you to have picked up at least a couple of fawning admirers we could ask.

A couple? I should take offense to that.

[He says, in the sort of tone that suggests the remark ought properly to be followed with a "Do you even know me at all?" attached. But she doesn't know he's been here before; she doesn't remember that she was, too. And that's fine. Finnick's well accustomed to the experience of knowing more than everyone else.

He's well used to the practice of keeping secrets, too.]

I can tell you this--there's not a lot the Gamemakers here can't do. Could they have gotten one into the Capitol? Absolutely. And anybody in the Capitol would have to be an idiot not to take it when they offered. If they offered.

[Peeta, Johanna. Annie. If they went to Annie during that time, asked her to come here while the Capitol had her...he hopes she'd take the offer. Maybe she would. Hopefully she would. He'd protected her from them for years, but she was a Victor once, too. Maybe she'd know. He can only hope.]

If you're looking for him, I can think of a few places to try.

[The Gamemakers here.]

Then it is another kind of game. [She takes the news steadfastly, ignoring that part of her that wants to scream and sob just at the word (there is always some part of her screaming but if she can keep distracted then she doesn't have to let it pull her apart). His smile is the hook she hangs her sanity on. He wouldn't, couldn't look so free if this were a game of the kind they're used to. She knows the two Finnicks now, this one isn't his gameface.] I've never been in an arena without him. So we'll try everywhere. If they're here, they'll need us.

[Her Peeta. His Annie. She says it with the confidence of someone all too aware that it's the reverse that's true.

Already she's standing differently, less the girl trying to blend in with the destruction. In a game, fear comes second to strategy.]

Maybe you can prove I underestimated you and charm some more food out of someone along the way.

I can do you one better. Want to go hit up the best bakery in town?

[He dusts a bit of nonexistent dirt off his sleeve, then rakes his hand through his hair like he's getting ready to put on a show. He doesn't need to, not here, but it'll make Katniss feel better to see these small signs of it--to read that he knows she's out of her element here, and that he's not, and that they may not be District partners but they've been partners in other things before (anguish, and horror, and death), and they'll get through this arena together, too.

He remembers all too well; that was always his goal, back then. Keep Katniss and Peeta alive. Cinna was the one fixated on keeping them happy and content and oblivious. Finnick was the one keeping them safe and secure and breathing.

That's always his job, isn't it. It's what he's good at--protecting them.]

And try to act like you're happy to be hanging out with me, will you? Put on a smile and you might even convince some of our audience that you're as fun to be around as I am.

What do you suppose their idea of fun is? Maybe I am. [She's never going to be the good-time girl, it would require too many shifts in the tectonic plates that make her up. But she does remember fun. A long time ago. At least, she remembers being satisfied with her achievements, and that's almost the same thing.

(No, there's fun, too. Her mind offers flashes of two arrows notched at once and Gale's smile bright in the wood's dappled light. Catching Peeta's blue eyes as he so earnestly explains that if you put enough pressure on coal, it turns to pearls. Finnick Odair whisking off his hospital gown to reveal a body a little more ravaged than it used to be, but presented with his old, ridiculous charm).

It's for his benefit that she puts on one of her practised smiles and takes his arm.]

To the best bakery in town. [However strange that makes her feel. There are more important things to focus on - now that she has her focus. Things she's seeing more clearly.] And you can tell me how long you were here, before. And when you last saw me.

[That show he's putting on. The Finnick who spent a night knotting rope with her couldn't pull it off so easily, not yet.]

[There are a lot of things he could tell her, really. That's not the question; in Finnick's life, "could" is never the question. It's always either "should" or "will". Subtle a difference as it might seem, it's a significant one nonetheless.

Still, he feels as though--

For Katniss (anguished, brightly-burning Katniss, for whom he's experienced a glittering kaleidoscope of emotions over the time he's known her, who he knows now is being used and made a tool the same way that all the Victors are, the way he once was but is never going to be again), maybe there are words he owes her. Maybe he and all his pretty turns of phrase can find the right ones.

He starts them walking, jaunty and brisk, like two old friends out for a stroll. Maybe that's what they are. Maybe.]

I used to work at this place, you know. I couldn't bake my way out of a tackle bag, but I could lift the sacks of flour and stuff. After awhile the baker figured out he could make a fortune if he let me work the counter and convince all the customers to buy more than they intended to, instead.

[It's a fond memory, and there's an unspoken laugh riding beneath the words. Weren't those the days, he thinks.]

Would you believe me if I told you it works out in the end, Katniss?

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