voice || username: JOHANNA

[axeyou]

So since no one else is going to talk about it...

Let's do a vote. Show of hands. How many of you think we're all alone here? A whole planet of pretty woods, jut for us. And how many of you think that we can't be alone. Maybe there's some city out there. Too bad you can't leave the camp.

And how many of you think that we're, like, totally surrounded. I hear that's a thing. Because there's spears, and they're stealing from us. Blah, blah. Tell me something real. If there's someone out there? I'd like to get to them first. I'd like to think everyone would agree with me, but I'm sure I'd be wrong.

Actually, you know what I'd love? I'd love for them to come by and try to get at my stuff. Consider this an invitation.

Comments

[notyourutopian]

I waited years. [There's some annoyance in her voice there.]

Well, if they're waiting to see if we're dangerous, taking things to try and judge by makes sense. They're trying to get a feel from us.

[A beat.]

...Do you want them to attack us?

[axeyou]

[Coolly:] Wow. Mine was just days.

[That is to say, that's how long she waited. Still not impressed by years.]

What I want is to know what we're supposedly up against. I want to stop sitting around and pretending that waiting is going to make this any easier. It's not. If they're waiting to see if we're dangerous, then we show them we're dangerous. We've played stupid long enough. If we're not dangerous, then we deserve whatever comes next, but personally? I'd rather be dangerous.

[notyourutopian]

I suppose I just had the luxury of patience. Or I didn't really have a choice.

[She hesitates.]

So find a way to lure them in here.

[axeyou]

Why would I lure them when I could trap them? Or get rid of them?

[notyourutopian]

Because we can't go to them, so you can't trap them until they actually show themselves.

Can't get rid of them, either. If you want to know who they are, we have to come up with some reason to make them come to us.

[axeyou]

You know what traps are, right? Like, pits covered with leaves? Snares? Stuff that holds people until we come along and find them?

[notyourutopian]

Oh.

[There's a slightly embarrassed pause, because that hadn't even really occurred to her.]

I was thinking more...well. Something like an ambush rather than...

[A beat.]

Things like that weren't really something possible in-

[Another beat.]

I suppose that could work.

[axeyou]

You couldn't dig a hole before?

[Whatever you were going to say, girlfriend, it's probably funny. Or at least, Johanna would laugh at it, even if stuff not being possible thanks to some restriction is a pretty familiar circumstance to her. Ah, the years of her youth.]

They work. If we do them right. Ambushes are fun too, but save that for later okay? Don't get ahead of us. Crawl before you walk, or whatever.

[notyourutopian]

[Okay, definitely embarrassed and just a tad annoyed now.]

I lived in the city on the bottom of the sea. Doing anything like that in the wrong spot meant lots and lots of water in places you preferred were dry.

[She sucks in a breath to calm herself.]

So do you have a plan for...doing this 'right?'

[axeyou]

[Please don't talk about 'lots of water', thanks. Not that she's going to actually say anything like that. At best, she'll get a little meaner to make up for her own perceived unspoken weakness.

But as for plans:]

Personally? I'm going to look at a crashed ship. Then when I get back, I have a date. Then I'll get to traps. See, all my stuff? I'm keeping safe and far away, and hidden. Living in a camp with the rest of you idiots is not my idea of smart. I'm not in this big hurry.

Think you can learn how to dig a hole by the time I get back?

[notyourutopian]

It's perfectly fine to live in the camp, as long as you have some way of knowing when people are coming.

[Eleanor can't help but be a tad amused.]

Date, then fighting?

[She is not going to dignify the hole-digging with a response, though.]

[axeyou]

[She heaves a sigh, exaggerated.]

A girl's got to have some priorities. It can't always be the fun stuff first. You know how it is. Maybe.

Did they have fun, in your underwater... wherever?

[notyourutopian]

[That...actually makes her laugh. It's a quiet laugh, like someone used to having to muffle things like that. And then she's silent for a while because no one had ever asked her that before. Fun in Rapture.]

When I was a child, a young child, Rapture was...normal. Fairly normal. I suppose people had fun. There were movies and things.

[A pause.]

Now, though. Well. If you enjoy fighting lunatics, then I...suppose?

[She can't really admit she got a thrill out of that. Not out loud.]

[axeyou]

Movies and things. Wow, that's more normal than we ever got. I'm jealous.

[She doesn't sound jealous. She sounds bored. Unsurprising. Maybe a little amused, which might be more surprising.]

And I love fighting lunatics. Actually, scratch that. I love fighting anyone. Maybe I should move there.

[notyourutopian]

Well it was fairly fancy back then. The cutting edge of human civilization. [She says this dripping with sarcasm.]

No one should move there. I was trying to escape when I wound up on the ship.

[axeyou]

And now you're here, with more lunatics. Some escape. Sucks, doesn't it?

[notyourutopian]

Mm.

You know, in spite of everything, if not for my sisters not being here, this would be an improvement.

[axeyou]

Same. Not the sisters thing. But everything else, yeah. That might be even sadder than the rest of it. You know you come from shit when a stinking jungle without a decent shower is better than where you were before.

[notyourutopian]

...If you don't mind me asking, where were you before?

[axeyou]

Locked up in a cell.

Or do you mean like a country? Panem. The Capitol. I already know that means nothing to you.

[notyourutopian]

Well the cell part sounds familiar.

But yeah. The rest of it doesn't mean anything. Sorry.

[axeyou]

Like I said. I already knew it wouldn't mean anything.

So were you here before we crashed?

[notyourutopian]

Yes. Though only for a few months.

The ship at least felt like something familiar.

[axeyou]

Oh, come on. This? Is just a different kind of prison. Seen one, seen 'em all, you know?

[notyourutopian]

Yes, but at least we can see the sky.

[That meant a lot to her. More than she really knew how to explain.]