Catch This!

Thing was, Anna watched his approach. As soon as the young man got within roughly 10 meters of her, she watched him from the corner of her eye, keeping to herself, wondering what would happen. Would he run? Would he come closer? Would he flee like rabbits, mice, and voles tried? This time, upon seeing him, she felt no urgency to hurt him, no wordless desire to bring about his demise. Instead she simply watched as the inattentive boy drew closer and closer. She took her eyes off him for a moment, to look about the forest, and felt the very solid thump as he ran into her.

She cast her gaze downward, her eyes meeting the fearful lad's, and the corner of her mouth pulled up to reveal glinting teeth as she smiled.

Then, she laughed.

A deep, belly laugh. She tossed her head back in mirth, veil slipping down her shoulders, laughing more and more. She laughed for quite a bit. Then, once she stopped laughing, she took a deep breath and looked back down at the boy. What was his name, she asked herself, thinking. Smith. Something Smith. She never remembered, for it never mattered.

"What?" she asked, corner of her mouth pulling up and back again, the crack in her lip pulling wider. "Scared, you. Fear, little mouse?" She glanced down at her hand, weighing the stone and lifting it up to her shoulder. "Think me scare." She chuckled again.

The way she spoke to him was almost mocking, poking fun at the way he seemed to hold himself. "You come kill? Think you death Mother Huntress?"

Anna tilted her head to the side, handing the boy the rock she held in her hand. "'Get out'a hair now?'" She chuckled again. "Boy no in hair. No hair be in."

She moved her mask to the side for a moment, not enough to uncover her face. Then, she lifted her veil that was attached and showed the boy her shaved head. "See? No hair be in." A breeze drifted by, and she let the veil fall again, never really showing her hair for long outside her cabin if she could help it. It felt like being vulnerable, and that was not something she was comfortable with outside her forest.

Anna's world remained very...simple, like it is when she learned everything herself, and tried to train her own social skills in an effort to soothe and raise little ones.

Clearly, this boy was no little one, but Anna, unaware, gestured to the ground and pulled out a sack from her hip to offer as a pillow. Unaware that the sack smelled god-awful from carrying animal carcasses, she gave him a sort of grin, which must have looked more like a grimace. With everything in her, in this moment, Anna was trying to convey a kindness before the next time she saw this boy, which would most likely be when that murmur in the back of her skull would tell her to kill everyone in sight again. Perhaps, after, they could throw around the rock, another activity Anna remained unaware was strange.

"Boy no death Huntress, me see." Her shoulders moved and her thick shirt shifted, the fabric rough against her skin. "Heh heh. You, small, young. Mother Huntress no hurt for now. Boy tired, boy sleep." She gestured to the ground again, blissfully unaware of how terrifying and scary she truly was.

"Boy go home?" Anna asked, holding her hand out for her rock. "Boy fear. Mother Huntress see now." Her heart dropped, just a little, that she could not seem to put his mind at ease. She wanted to help the boy, and while she did not understand why he did not want to accept her help when he seemed so tired, but as Anna learned time and time again, young ones could be given meat, but they would not eat. This boy, he would not sleep, and short of hitting him on the head herself to make him, she could not force him. While the thought to force him was a feasible option, she knew; that would only serve to make the boy more scared, and to run as far away from her as he could.

Anna put away her sack, brushing off her hand and stepping forward. "Give rock, boy. Mother Huntress want rock back." She hoped her stance did not make him think she would hurt him, because truly, she just wanted to see how far she could throw it. Maybe she could make another crow explode. She didn't know how to express to him that she expected him to give her the rock back, and that she would intimidate him into dropping it, if she could. It was a nice, hefty rock. She did not want to find another. "Give rock, then boy home. Boy no fear Mother Huntress. Boy give rock."

Anna smiled again, taking her rock back and dropping her hand to her side. Truly, she was glad she didn't have to intimidate the boy into giving her the rock back--it was the last thing she really wanted to do right now, and the fact that it was not necessary set her at ease. "Thank," she told him, stepping back and casting her gaze around the forest. Anna turned away from Quentin, then turned back. "Boy give name?"

It would be nice, at least, to thank him properly. Clearly, from his shaking arm, the boy was terrified of her, and while she could do nothing to fix that after all, the least she could do was look him in the face and thank him by name, like the good G-d intended. Then, at least, should she catch sight of a crow, she could catch his attention proper and watch her explode a bird. It was one of the more impressive things she could do. "Boy give name, then boy go home."

Anna thought for a moment, processing Quentin's request, and decided to grant him that much. After all, she had no hidden name, and she did show the boy her hair. A corner of her mouth quirked up again.
"Анна," she told him. "Ah-nah." If the boy had to know her name, she was going to make sure he could say it correctly, too. "Анна Mother Huntress."

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement; it was the bird she was hoping for. Anna never hoped for much so that the world could never let her down like it always seemed to. She remembered the words her mother taught her, the skills she needed to get by, and truly, Anna was a person who could take down two birds with one stone in each sense of the phrase. 

"Look," she whispered to the boy, gesturing with her head toward where the bird was, about 20 meters out. "Bird. Want see poof?"

Truly, that was a bizarre way to put it, but Anna had no such words in English like "explode" "implode" or "blow up". How would she know those words, after all? Those words were not ones that you would hear the soldiers that stormed her forest say. She did know numerous insults, really, but she didn't want to call 'Quentin' a brat. 

Anna grinned, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, keeping her steps away from Quentin as quiet as she possibly could. Her muscles strained keeping that still, the almost-silent shuff as her veil drew across her shoulders, the corner of it slipping across her shoulders as she cocked her arm back as far as she could. Then, she snapped her entire right side forward, throwing the rock as hard as she could, the effort forcing her right foot a step forward. The rock itself, having fit pretty well within her own hand, hurtled toward the bird, and struck.

"Caw!" The bird itself let out only a cry and feathers flew into the air around where the bird used to be--key word used.

Anna pointed excitedly at the bird that was now dead on the ground, the area around it littered with feathers, feet in the air from the bird upon contact. "Poof!" She called, grinning wide and pointing again with emphasis. "Bird go poof!" Her excitement and pride was genuine, this trick being one she had about a 70/40 chance of pulling off.

Hearing the shock in his voice, Anna's grin dropped and she tilted her head, like a dog trying to understand your tone. "Bird go poof," she repeated, she exhaled with what could have been interpreted as an annoyed look. The Huntress herself felt almost... disappointed, thinking that clearly he did not understand what she had meant. 
When misunderstandings happened, Anna rarely felt the need nor the motivation to explain herself further, and borderline refused to learn more of English than she felt succinctly necessary. Rather than start up a stream of words that she learned Quentin simply won't understand, she just shut her mouth.

Anna turned back to the bird carcass, walking the distance it took to get her to the animal's remains. She brought out the sack at her hip again, dropping the bird in and closing and tying her sack to her belt. She waved at Quentin, starting up her hum, and sort of stood there a moment.

"Huntress go home now. Huntress want eat bird." 

Anna slowly turned toward Quentin, her face furrowing in confusion. Obviously, the boy couldn't see that under her mask, but she tilted her head to the side again, struggling to grasp the sudden change of heart. It wasn't like she received apologies often, and certainly not from people who had a negative perception of her like Quentin seemed to have. She cleared her throat, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, feeling very suddenly... out of place, here.

"Sorry?" she repeated, licking her lip. She thought for a moment, the smoke practically coming from her ears as she tried to appraise the situation and came up with nothing clear. Anna stayed where she was, letting the boy get closer but ensuring she made no sudden or threatening movements, as Quentin seemed to react to those poorly. His other words, about aiming and striking the bird, didn't make sense and didn't line up with her understanding of what was happening in this moment. None of the little ones ever talked like this, really, they all just cried and begged for comfort, and Anna knew best how to comfort her children; this boy was clearly not one of those, and his actions and words made equal sense: none.

Keeping her eyes on Quentin, Anna avoided eye contact and tossed her head to the side with nerves as she muttered softly in Russian. "Boy no like poof," she finally stated, confusion warping her tone. "Ken-tin shout. No like Huntress, methinks. Boy scared."

Anna watched him as he spoke, piecing apart the words he spoke. The Huntress wanted to understand what this boy was saying, understand what all of these words meant, and found herself almost frustrated with piecing apart when Quentin slurred two words together. Anna found herself wishing the boy spoke Russian, but there seemed to be no way now for him to learn unless Anna taught him herself. Frankly, the boy seemed scared enough through this interaction itself, and she doubted he would want to spend even more time together. Especially all the time it would take to learn her home tongue in extended lengths so that conversation could be made in a way that they both understood.

"да," she confirmed, nodding her head and forcing her shoulders to relax. "Mother Huntress no mean scare. Want see Ken-tin rest," she expressed, the word rest carrying an incredible amount of weight in that sentence connected to her meaning. Anna wanted to see Quentin relax, just a little bit; Anna wanted to sit on the forest floor, pick all the feathers out of her new bird, and breathe for a moment. Above anything else, Anna wanted the tension here to go down.

Anna never thought of herself like something to be feared. This interaction, Quentin's nerves, his exclamation--it made it all painfully aware that Anna herself was never seen past the mask, and was viewed only--
Only like something that was vicious.
If her English was better, maybe everyone would know her intent was to nurture, to aid, and to be the comforting figure who made decisions of the house. Anna wanted, in every way, to be like her mother was before she passed. To give that to another, even after events that left Anna screaming, holding her head in grief, shaving her hair down to the scalp again with a razor she stole a long time ago from men who did not belong in her home. But, like Anna had decided a long time ago, she would not try harder to learn this bullshit language. There's never any use for it in her cottage.

Quentin seemed to want very little, in Anna's eyes, as he seemed self-sufficient enough and was simply wracked with those shudders and nerves that mice seemed to have. She wanted to bring the boy safely to her cottage, to give him a pelt and a room to sleep so that he did not feel he had to watch his back, to give him just a moment of rest. She knew, though, survivors stayed elsewhere. She never saw many in her forest.


"Anna be friend," she told Quentin. "Anna be good."

Anna nodded, solemnly, like she understood what he meant. She didn't, and she found herself unfamiliar with the concept of "trust". Why would she be telling him a lie? She had never told a lie in her life (that she was aware of). Clearly, though, Anna had to try to do something to help this boy feel more comfortable where he was; they were not too far from her cottage where they stood, and the cottage was certainly the most secure area in the Entity's realm. It had what other areas did not: Anna, armed with as many hatchets as she could carry, and the will to die if necessary to protect her forest and her home.

Anna did the only thing that she could really think of. Taking a couple steps closer to the boy, Anna put an arm around the back of his shoulders, an arm around the knees, and a sharp huff as air left her lungs and she picked the boy up, cradling him close to her. She shifted him a little, feeling the boy stiffen, and leaned her head forward toward the boy. 

"Mask, you hold, please," she requested, taking a step forward and adjusting her arms to hold him closer; closer and secure. She would not drop him, and she stood where the first step took her to ensure that even though she held him, Quentin held the power here.

Anna stood, facing the direction she would take to take the both of them to her home. Unbeknownst to Quentin, Anna found herself plotting around the rooms she saw as available in her cottage that could be utilized so that Quentin had a home. One room was already dedicated to Susie; it sat empty, with a few pelts in the corner and a crude bed against the wall. The room next to it was broken (Anna made a small note to herself to put blankets across the opening every night), but the room across the way would work for Quentin just fine.

Though, it needed the blood and feathers cleaned out of it. 

Anna chuckled softly at Quentin's question. "We go Mother's home now," she told him, looking down at him warmly for a moment before picking her eyes back up to ensure they would come to no harm as they traveled. "Mother have skins, warm, Mother have room for boy to rest. Safe, safe, away from hurt." She thought for a moment, pursing her lips. "Boy could close door, if boy feel scared. Boy need safe, Mother give safe."

She continued further forward, taking a left around a tree she knew at the edge of her property as the few walls around her forest came into view. Anna shifted Quentin to be held securely as she took careful, planned steps forward through the thick woods that marked the entrance of her realm. As soon as the cottage came into view, Anna gently placed Quentin on the ground, helping him stand before giving him half of a smile and removing her mask.

Anna took large, smooth strides to her house, hanging her mask off a nail in her doorway and ducking into Susie's room. She removed the few things she placed in there for the girl, thinking that to keep them hidden in the name of keeping Susie's things to be exclusively hers would help the other child feel safe in her cottage.

Her cottage, after all, was the safest place Anna knew.

She ducked her head back out, calling to Quentin. "Come sleep here?" she asked, gesturing to the house. "Safe sleep, Mother help. Mother keep you safe."

She smiled at the boy, cracked lip pulling and oozing the smallest bit of blood. Leaving him to settle into the room, Anna started walking 'round the house, checking the doors, the hinges, the windows and half-walls. Everything was stable, set, like it always was, put together and held together by wood, nails, and the magic that seemed to to persist through the Entity's realm. The house was held together and safe as always; Anna's safe little pocket in this world where she could finally take care of children like she was meant to do. The one thing Anna had always strived for, blissfully unaware of her horrific acts within trials.

With a soft grunt she stepped over a low wall, kneeling at the base of her cottage and pulling a weed that threatened to grow under, and into, her safe little cottage.

That was the one word Anna had running in her mind over, and over. Safe. Secure. Safe. Secure. Some of the few words of English that Anna knew (she learned it from Ash) to describe her cottage to any of the teens she encountered in her path outside trials. That was always the words that brought them in, filled Anna's house, and set her heart at ease; safe, secure, safe, secure. She let her mind wander as she busied herself around the house (outside of it, that how the little survivors she welcomed to and from seemed to feel safer), picking weeds that came back, day after day (if that's what you could truly call the passage of time here). The onions that grew around in the grass, trampled, got pulled; she brought it up to her nose, sniffing, and gagged. The onion smelled fucking awful and she refused to let it live around her house or with her good carrots.

Anna hummed, softly, keeping up the sound in the area so she wouldn't lose track of the things around her, or the boy in her cottage.