Kate Bishop (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pm
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pmataraxion inbox
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KATE BISHOP
KATE BISHOP
alsohawkeye) wrote2024-01-11 07:28 pm
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They couldn't keep an eye on us if we were in treehouses.
[They. It might sound like she means adults, parents--but really, she means Peacekeepers. Just thinking of them makes her hands feel tight, like she should be gripping at her axe. Instead she laces her fingers together and stretches them out in front of her.]
We climbed a lot of trees. And sometimes we made little platforms. If you had to be up in the higher branches, it was easier. We were supposed to take them down when we were done, but they got left up overnight sometimes. And I've slept in trees before.
Don't tell me you expect a whole house. I'm not even sure I want to do a ring.
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Kate listens, and makes a face at the idea of treehouses not being allowed, skeptical and affronted at once. This is the true injustice in Panem, clearly. As for Johanna's reluctance she drops her mouth open in faux shock. ]
Are you jilting me? This is what I get for trying not to be so easy.
[ She doesn't keep up the act as long this time, head tipping to one side, jaw on her knuckles. ]
We weren't allowed to build treehouses either. All the trees in the city that are big enough are in the park, and if you tried the police would stop you. And my father refused to let me try to build one at our beach house because the neighbors wouldn't like it and it would ruin the line of the property, or something pretentious like that. [ Which she clearly still thinks is terribly lame, judging from the scoff in her tone. ]
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[It's good advice. Balance between too easy and too hard. But Kate's overdone reaction makes the corner of her mouth tug up again. Stupid.]
But you poor thing. Why didn't you just build it anyways? It's not like they're very hard, and you probably had plenty of stuff laying around--even if you are probably crap at construction.
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[ Kate's teeth catch in her lip but don't quite hold in a flare of a grin. ]
So they're that easy? Easy enough you could build one here?
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[And, sister: it ain't gifted. Johanna shifts her weight all onto her right hand, so she can use her left to scratch, lazily, at her collarbone.]
Probably. Yeah. If I wanted to. It'd just be putting walls on a platform. You're not seriously asking me to build you a treehouse, are you?
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I'd help! And maybe I'd owe you one. Come on, [ She drags the word out because that is a surefire way to persuade people ] it'd be fun. We could drag a couple mattresses up there somehow, get a change of scenery from these ugly little rooms.
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...although, unrelated to Kate's little show of pleading--a treehouse would be pretty cool. A nice change of scenery. God, fuck space for making her think that way.]
How many nails do you have? I'm not doing wood joints for a whole house.
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Uuuuuummmmm I will look into that. There've got to be some or maybe someone can make some? I'll figure it out. Tomorrow we can go pick a tree?
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[She flops her hand out in something like an empty-handed shrug. Eh. Dispassion at its greatest.]
If they're gone, free nails. And any tree will work. It's not like there's a type that's better for treehouses.
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[ Free nails, yay. As for the tree she lifts a brow. ]
Really? Doesn't it matter what sort of branches and what shape they are and stuff?
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[Like, duh, and with a sigh Johanna puts her weight back onto her hands again, kicks her feet out in front of her with her heels braced against the floor. She stretches her toes inside of her socks. The wool makes them look almost webbed. She think of Finnick, for a second, and smiles.]
But it's not like there's one tree. And all the trees in the garden are pretty big. They probably made them that way on purpose, pumped them full of some chemicals so they'd grow faster.
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[ Kate does some unnecessary mime with a clawed hand and jerky, robotic arm movement. ]
So we should have plenty of good tree options, then. Now I'm having all kinds of Swiss Family Robinson dreams. --It's a story about a family that gets shipwrecked on a deserted island and they have to survive there til they're rescued. They build some really awesome treehouses with all kinds of bridges and pulleys and skylights and stuff.
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How did they build anything if they were on a deserted island?
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I know you can make tools. But you're telling me that a whole family of tool-makers just washed up on an island--and they could build houses.
Come on.
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[ Kate's defense comes with a little bit of a laugh. She shifts, ostensibly just to get her elbow and head and pillow all jammed into a more comfortable arrangement but it also makes more room on Johanna's side of the bed. Just in case. ]
People had to know how to do that stuff themselves, then. But I think that really was the family business. They'd packed up everything and were sailing halfway around the world to help build a new colony, but they never made it because of the pirates and the storm.
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[She huffs another laugh, brief and pitched.
Except, okay--]
What pirates.
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I mean they were all pretty smart, but I think they were engineers. Builders. And they were prepared to move to the jungle so they must've known stuff. [ She makes a whatever gesture. ]
Anyway, pirates. So the reason they ended up shipwrecked was they were trying to escape from some pirates. A whole fleet of them ruled the area around there and they were mad these ships were coming through, so they were going to attack. So to get away their ship raced into a storm and too close to the rocks and wrecked.
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So what happened to the pirates? They just gave up? They thought they were dead, but no, they were just jungle-living geniuses, and they all lived happily ever after?
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[ Kate's smiling back, of course, though she doesn't reach over again. ]
So then the pirates went away for a while and they had to figure out how to survive on the island. Finding water and food, not getting eaten by tigers, all sorts of stuff. For a while they live in this cave, while the dad and the brothers start building the giant treehouse.
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[Not impressed, yet still kind of amused. She's humoring this little bedtime story, okay.]
But I guess maybe they were really good at hiding too, huh. That's all that happened to them? A cave, and a treehouse, and maybe they were hungry for a little while--and the book just ends? What happens. There's got to be more to it.
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Do you want me to just skip to the end or do you want to know what happens? [ Kate lifts a brow at her and rolls her eyes, reaching over to give her shirt a playful tug. ]
And would you lie down? My neck hurts looking up at you. So they're building their awesome-- seriously, it's awesome-- treehouse, and mostly they're having a pretty good time, but there's this tiger that keeps coming around and they don't have real weapons, just some spears they made.
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[With a sigh, she throws her feet up onto the bed and lays down beside Kate. So maybe she does care, sort of. Except not.
She works her head back onto the pillow, kicking her feet to get herself into place, and then, with a final huff of breath, settles down with her hands folded, resting on her stomach.]
Keep going. What do they do to the tiger.
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So at first they try to kill the tiger. But they're used to hunting with guns, and the tiger is huge and strong, not like any animals they have back home in Switzerland. It's got massive teeth and giant paws with big nasty claws on them and it just swipes [ she mimes some more with a hand past Johanna's chest, fingers spread and curled into claws ] and snaps their spears in half and they have to run back up into their treehouse to escape. The next time....
[ Kate spins the tiger story out into a longer and more thrilling tale than 'and then they dug a pit and the tiger fell in and they kept it there', one involving tiger families and tiger training and then there's exploring the island with animal encounters along the way and strange girls disguised as boys found in swamps and escapes from pirates and more pirate attacks and pirates being eaten by a pack of trained tigers. She keeps it going as long as Johanna seems interested, far more adventure and battle shoved into the story than the original, even if she's yawning hugely by the end. ]
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Still: she listens, and when Kate's yawns get so frequent that they start to interrupt the flow of the story, she reaches over to thump her hand, lightly, on Kate's stomach.]
Hey. Are you falling asleep on me?
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