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Bitch. [ Kate says it with a grin. She is so gifted that she feels no need to defend herself further, so there. ]

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.

[Pitiless, Johanna looks over at Kate. Dragging out onnnnn is not the way to her heart.

...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.

[ Fuck space, Kate's thought exactly. ]

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?

There was a forge or something. Wasn't there? Everyone who ran it is probably gone now. Gone, or dead, or disappeared, or-- whatever.

[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.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'll ask around. Someone must know where it is.

[ 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?

Well, yeah--

[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.

Probably. Or hauled them in here fully grown with some sort of gigantic crane.

[ 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.

[The little pantomime show gets a huge eyeroll. And good job explaining your reference, Kate--but the explanation doesn't make Johanna any less skeptical.]

How did they build anything if they were on a deserted island?

There were trees, and bamboo and stuff. And this was back a couple hundred years ago, [ Kate says, warming to the subject a little bit. ] so their ship was wooden, and when it got broken up on the rocks in the storm pieces of it washed ashore. So they had some tools and you can make hammers out of rocks or rope out of grass, stuff like that. They were resourceful. [ Also fictional, that helps. ]

[She makes a quiet noise, something like a scoff.]

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.

It was a long time ago!

[ 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.

A family business of what. Everybody was just good at everything? That was the business?

[She huffs another laugh, brief and pitched.

Except, okay--]

What pirates.

Yes, their family business was being geniuses. [ Kate reaches out to swat at Johanna's elbow, fingers swinging intentionally just wide. ]

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.

[She leans away a little, even if Kate wasn't really planning to hit her, or whatever--but it's practically flirty, helped by the way that she's grinning at her.]

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?

Not exactly. I mean, the pirates did think they were dead. The ship was broken up into pieces, just a bunch of boards and stuff floating around. And the Robinsons hid in the jungle when the pirates came to check.

[ 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.

Wow. Bad pirates. If you're checking the jungle? Actually check the jungle.

[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.

[ Totally just humoring, suuure. ]

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.

Like I care about your neck.

[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.

[ Kate settles back down once Johanna has, shifting into a more comfortable lie on her side with her arm folded up beneath the pillow. She holds in a smile at the corners of her mouth when told to keep going. Storytime it is. ]

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. ]

Edited 2015-02-06 15:34 (UTC)

[There are a few caged tigers in the Capitol, and Johanna has seen them, so she's not clueless on that part of the story. She identifies with the tigers more than the stupid plucky family with their spears--why did they make spears that could be broken so easily, if they were going up against a tiger--so the best part of the story is definitely the part where the pirates get eaten by tigers. And of course she's listening, but not so rapt that she doesn't make snide remarks from time to time--jungles aren't the same as forests, but she's still done her share of surviving--

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?

[ Kate is making a valiant effort but she is clearly falling asleep on Johanna. The thump prompts a laugh and a flinch, knees twitching up like she might curl around that hand. But she just shakes her head and puts her hand over her mouth again. ]

No. Maybe. Maybe you'll just have to hear the rest of the story tomorrow.

Wait around here until you decide to tell me more? No thanks.

[She folds her hands over her own stomach again, with another quiet huff.]

Who knows when that will be.

Maybe never with that attitude.

[ Kate's kidding, sleepily thwapping Johanna's stomach in return, smile lingering. ]

I'll tell you tomorrow! I promise. Whenever you want.

[She rolls her eyes, but doesn't punch Kate in the face for smacking her stomach. She does push her hand away, but as punishments go, that's really not so bad--and anyways, Kate's limbs are heavy enough from sleepiness that the flop of her arm is half her own fault.]

So I just have to lay here while you go to sleep? God, you're boring.

You can do whatever you want. But yes I'm going to boringly go to sleep.

[ Kate lets her arms flop back and rolls onto her side, tugging the blanket up her shoulder. ]

The tigers and pirates aren't going anywhere. The next bit also has explosions.

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