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[Annie is neat and calm, at least to start with. She brushed her hair neatly and wove two tiny braids in it that frame her face to help her get calm before they broadcasy. She's going to have a large audience and she has to be less shaken than the woman they heard on audio.]

Hello, everyone. I was talking to Nathan Petrelli about ways to help around the ship, and we came up with the idea of group meals. At least dinner and breakfast, I think. The gardens have plenty of fresh vegetables but I understand not everyone knows how to cook them. Some of the stored food is eaten less than the rest, because it's more complicated.

So I was wondering if there are other cooks aboard that might want to help. Or anyone who wants to, we can teach you. We'll also need--

[Annie checks her notes, pursing her lips.] To take a full inventory of the supplies on the occupied decks, at least, as well as the gardens, so we can plan menus accordingly.

Since I know some people will still want to eat alone, I'll need a headcount of who's interested. And if you have special dietary needs like allergies we can put you on a list for special meals.

I think--that's everything. Hi, I'm Annie Cresta.

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Annie Cresta. What does serrah mean?

[Annie is actually fine with the shil shifting, she'd imagine it doing that anyway. One perk of insanity.]

Oh--I can meet you there.

[She'll have to get ready--she's bringing her knives, too. Who couls blame her? She picks up the comm as she tucks them into her belt.]

It's a formality.

[ He doesn't know how to explain it past that, and he doesn't feel like highlighting the fact he was being polite. It'd undo the effort in the first place, pointless as most his endeavors were proving around here.

It frustrated him to no small end. ]

Nothing important, Serrah Cresta. I'll see you at the entrance to these Gardens?

[ He hopes. If he has to go searching, he will, but one small glimpse of her face is not enough to plan a search around. ]

Then thank you. Serrah Hawke--or it is only for women? Oh, if it is, I'm sorry--

[She blushes, fumbling. He was trying to be nice, for goodness' sake.]

Yes. I'll be there.

[When Carver shows, sure enough Annie is waiting. She's not hiding that she's armed, but it's no threat to him. (She hopes.) She's sitting--on the floor, playing catfish cradle with a bit of string, and lifts her head to smile in greeting.

Hi.

... For everyone.

[ He says, then he shoves this stupid -- thing -- in some part of this even stupider suit that counts for all he has to wear on this blighted ship. If anything, it makes him feel more awkward than running around nude.

Minor details.

His own broadsword is strapped to his back, hilt coming well up over his shoulder. He carries it easily, a length of metal that looked like it could have been an exceedingly bizarre ironing board at one point, for sheer size and length if nothing else. ]

Serrah Creston?

[ His body posture is relaxed, and he's not as actively frowning as he was before. It's more his guess that this is indeed the woman he's looking for, and the tied uncertainty of what he'll need to do in waiting if she's not.

What's she doing with that string? Oh, he should... manage to frown less in return. His expression goes more neutral. It's good to see someone else so wise as to have weaponry on them.

Carver approves. +10! ]

[Annie looks up and notes the sword first--she'd have to use a throwing knife, she thinks absently, he's built and armed like a Career, if she had brought her almost done net she could--

Bad thoughts. Games thoughts. Annie shook them off with a shudder like an animal flickering off a fly and stood up. She wasn't going to have to fight him.]

You can just call me Annie, if you like. I don't mind.

I like your sword.

[Not innuendo. She rises and keeps smiling, a little dreamy looking.]

Thank you for coming. I'm not really a gardener.

[ She's interesting to watch, partly because an element of her movement makes him wary. Everyone is a threat until proven otherwise. Aren't they?

Yes and no, he decides. It's unlikely his biggest worry needs to be these people he's with, not if they're without magic, and working toward bettering the group through cooking. He wants to believe that, on some level.

Yet he knows he can't entirely. He's too used to the dangers of the world he's lived and fought and died in, walks on for while dying slowly every day he lives on. (Sure, everyone died as they lived; most weren't being so literal in it, or sliding so surely toward the lasting insanity he was.) ]

Annie, then. You can call me Carver.

[ He glances over his shoulder. ]

It's a good blade. Gotten me through my unfair number of bloody situations.

[ He returns his attention to Annie, watching her, faintly perplexed. ]

I'm a fighter, always have been. [ So why was he here? ] But growing up in the Ferelden countryside means you've done more with farming than you ever wanted to. Boring, tedious work -- [ stop that, Carver; ] -- but necessary.

[It's true: Annie moves delicately and tremulously, but gracefully. The sleek lines of muscle are suggested by her jumpsuit. And those knives.

Annie would blame him for distrusting her--mad girl, killer. Mad in a way apart from Carver's future, but mad all the same. She laughs a little at the tediousness of farming, but it's a sad laugh.]

My family makes nets. I understand. My hands used to--

[Annie looks at them. The Capitol scrubbed the scars and calluses away, scrubs them every time she goes to the city. She has to bleed every time she comes home again, blister and renew until the next year. And her calluses now includevthe hilts of these knives.]

Doesn't matter. [Soft, soft. She goes towards the garden.]

It's good you can fight. A sword like that could protect a lot of people. And now you can help feed them too. That's two things, twice as much as me. Have you been here long? I'm an 8.

[ He appreciates the compliment -- he knows his own worth, but having it validated by outside sources, even ones who can't know the extent of his worth, had never failed to make him feel better. Call it ego (it was ego), and he was fine with that. Each time recognition came independent from his family name, from his elder sibling, Carver was that much more content with the world.

Of course, cutting down darkspawn was what defined so much of his life as worthwhile anymore, giving him that purpose this indeterminate place in the Void had abruptly taken away. It might have been a cost of his arrogance in presuming on bloodties as more important than an order. For certain, it was the arrogance of assuming he still knew better, running back to save Hawke from Hawke's own mess because he couldn't stand by while his remaining family went down in flames.

Or helped bring down Kirkwall in flames, all on their own. ]

Any woman who carries knives like those isn't so helpless herself. One well placed knife kills as easily as a sword.

[ He thinks of Isabela. Yes, one well placed knife was all some people needed. ]

No. I'm... [ he frowns. ] An eight. Based on these blighted tattoos we have. It's not enough to steal people away from where they belong, they've got to brand us like cattle on top of it all!

[ The irritation gets away from him, sending him pacing away from Annie, not able to stay still and rational all at once. He gets his temper under control. This isn't helping, and it isn't any good. ]

Has anyone got any idea of what we have growing in here?

[Anger makes Annie wary, shy away slightly--but it's frustrated anger, not at her. She's all right. She is. Finnick is busy and she has to stop dragging him down with her, a tangle of obligation like choking kelp. She lets him go, do what he needs to. Let it out of him ljme a squall running its course.

When she speaks it's softer, almost chastened--apologetic, nervous, she can't help it:]

Not that I know about. It's supposed to give us air. Did you know plants--breathe? I didn't.

[She'd turn away but putting her back to him would make it worse. How could she have thought she was strong enough to do this--no, no, she was. She won the Hunger Games. This was nothing. Calm down, Annie.]

I mostly don't know the trees. What fruit will come from them. Those and the--big plants. Some of the herbs. Some things lokk like home but aren't.

[ Carver isn't entirely thickheaded. When he looks up from his own frustrated movements, he sees how Annie reacts, making himself go still and noting her movements. He feels he's scaring her, which isn't an altogether strange sensation. He's scared people before, but usually it's those he intends to scare.

Not young women who've done nothing to offend him, who he was offering to help.

Some of the frustration bleeds away, and he tells himself he needs to stay calm. His voice is more level, his version of softer, as he regards some of the closer trees. ]

How many are bearing fruit now? There'll be cycles, though I haven't seen any sign of bugs. Have you?

[ Where there were plants, there were insects. That was a fact of life. So where were the insects? ]

Everything being easy to recognize would be too -- [ he catches himself. ] -- convenient. Herbs should be easier, based on scents. Any of the plants with edible roots. Some might have other edible berries.

[It helped. Annie could handle more calmness, not necessarily needing gentleness--she lived with Victors, people with blood under their nails and eaten hearts. She flashed a thank at him, as if to say: thank you.

Now to work. She crouched next to a plant bearing berries and plucked one, sniffed it, crushed it betwwen her fingers.]

I don't think anything would be poisonous. But we should be careful. There are some apple and peach trees in season.

[She remembered from training. Berries were the most dangerous.]

No. No insects. No animals, except what people have with them. My friend has birds. It's...strange. Unnatural, it's so--quiet.

That's the problem with this ship. It's so quiet.

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