Oceana Ridgeway ❦ Annie Cresta (reverence) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-02-24 16:25:00 |
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Days and weeks had fallen into a familiar sort of pattern. After breakfast, Annie would find her way to the water and comb the sand for shells. Finnick usually joined her, and whatever conversations they had were taken out to sea by the wind and waves. The touches that they shared were usually soft and steady. They did not want or expect or demand. Annie was still...trying to figure out how to be Annie again, and there were times when she still felt a whole world away. His presence was her anchor to this life, and she was increasingly aware of how dependant on him she had become. Her parents were still prominent figures in her life...so was Mags. When it wasn’t Finnick by her side on the shore, it was the elderly mentor that was their neighbor and friend. Mags was part of her family now. She had spent precious time, along with Finnick, trying to gently coax Annie back to the world of the living. Although she had come a long way in the months since winning her games, Annie never did well when she was alone for too long. During the times when Finnick was called away for engagements at the Capitol, it was easy for her to slip into a cycle of worry and pull back into her shell until he returned. Mags would never let her fully retreat, though. Though she didn’t speak more than mumbles, she provided Annie with the company that she so desperately needed. The company of someone who understood what had happened to her. The ocean no longer scared her as it had when she had first returned from the games. A small basket sat next to her, containing every kind of shell imaginable. She didn’t know why collecting them soothed her, but she had jars of shells lining a shelf at home and the collection just kept growing. Some she made into new things, some she displayed by themselves, some she eventually returned to the ocean if keeping it didn’t feel right. The water from the sea rushed up around her ankles now, soaking into her cotton skirt and she dipped her hands into the small reservoir she had made in front of her, scrubbing gritty sand off of a beautiful banded tulip shell. Her legs and feet were caked in patches of sand, some half-dried and some still new. Attuned to everything around her, Annie knew Mags was there before the old woman dropped a gentle hand onto her shoulder with a gentle squeeze. She turned a strained smile up to the woman’s wrinkled face and tried to make it reach her eyes, “Good morning, Mags.” The elder dropped slowly to her knees next to Annie and picked up one of the clean shells out of her basket to examine it. Annie watched out of her periphery as Mags gestured to the basket and then placed her hand gently on Annie’s knee, “Oh...I’ve been out here since just before sunrise. I found several treasures today.” There was a sigh from the old woman’s lips, and then she stopped Annie’s hand when she went to place a still-damp shell in the basket. Mag’s hands were calloused from years of use and her joints were arthritic, but it didn’t stop her from using her hands often, to communicate and to reassure. This time, her fingers gingerly grasped onto Annie’s wrist where she had woven a delicate chain of cowrie shells into a bracelet. Mags pressed one of those shells gently to Annie’s pulse, and looked at her imploringly, “He left this morning. For the Capitol. He’ll be back.” With just one more pat to Annie’s hands, Mags shifted back so that she could start sectioning Annie’s hair into workable sections. For a long time, there was nothing except ocean waves and the quiet mumbles from Mags as she intricately braided Annie’s hair. She was an expert at weaving those strands, just as she had woven the basket Annie used to collect her shells. Her hands had fallen uselessly into the murky water in front of her, fingertips pruning, “Do you think he’s okay?” She rarely asked that question aloud, though she knew the answer already if she was truthful with herself. Finnick was capable of strength that she did not possess. He was capable of turning his torture into something useful, but she did not think that made it less painful. Mags had paused in her task, just a moment, “No, I don’t think so either.” Oceana blinked rapidly, having zoned out in front of her laptop. The screen saver - all ocean scenes - scrolled in front of her eyes. She knew that Nick was not Finnick, exactly, but...he had dreams - memories - about him just as she did of Annie. The ones that she had experienced recently were almost worse than remembering the Hunger Games themselves. The fragility of her mind...the fractured, barely held together person that Annie Cresta had become felt far too close for comfort some days. Oceana had never truly dealt with her own PTSD in a productive way. She had just...tried to push everything from the accident aside and live as normally as possible, avoiding articles about vehicle accidents and persons that had to be in the hospital for extended periods of time, even if they had arrived by other circumstances. She recognized that Annie wasn’t...entirely insane. She was suffering, though, even once Finnick and Mags had helped to piece her back together...and it seemed she wasn’t the only one. |