[At first, he thinks it's an Arena. Instinct takes over when someone levers a weapon at him, and he fights. When you've lived alongside fear long enough you can weather it like a storm on the ocean, and he's a strong swimmer. Act first. Worry about the rest in the quiet moments that come between thunderclaps.
But no one kills him when they fight him down to the ground. There's no knife at his throat, no bullet in the head. No one asks about alliances, no one recognizes him. His face hasn't been his own since he was a boy. The cage is almost a relief. Better than other places he could be taken.
Finnick passes time by tapping a rhythm into the bars and when they take him out for questioning he is all smiles and winsome charm, and then when they step into a private room the first thing he does is wrap his arm around the throat of his jailer and squeeze.
(He doesn't talk. Where are you from, who are you, what are you doing here? He doesn't talk. He thinks about sugar melting on the tongue, about fish hooks, about dying in a lightless place)
He's taken back to the cage. When he's released days later, given his weapons, his belongings he spends his time disassembling everything. He doesn't know what he's looking for. Something. Something. A tracker in the haft of the trident. Poison. He thinks about mutts, and shudders. Keeps his back to every wall.
Tries, sometimes, to step into the man he'd been in the Capitol. Function over form. He looks for Annie in the sea of faces. He looks for Katniss. Johanna. Anyone. He's felt this alone once before, on the train back from his victory tour.
He repairs nets. Eats in the mess hall. He feels invisible, anonymous. Someone asks his name and he can't reply.
He doesn't track the days. Just knows that on one of them, he gets up and sits down in the mess hall across from someone he's never seen.]
Could use a bit of salt, don't you think?
network | anon
If you could redo a day in your life, would you?
[Idle question. Useless, really. But he isn't going to answer the AI's questions, and he isn't going to announce himself, and he doesn't want to talk while simultaneously recognizing that he's craving human connection, even this bastardized version of it.
So he compromises. He can still deal in secrets, even here.]
Finnick Odair (thg)
[At first, he thinks it's an Arena. Instinct takes over when someone levers a weapon at him, and he fights. When you've lived alongside fear long enough you can weather it like a storm on the ocean, and he's a strong swimmer. Act first. Worry about the rest in the quiet moments that come between thunderclaps.
But no one kills him when they fight him down to the ground. There's no knife at his throat, no bullet in the head. No one asks about alliances, no one recognizes him. His face hasn't been his own since he was a boy. The cage is almost a relief. Better than other places he could be taken.
Finnick passes time by tapping a rhythm into the bars and when they take him out for questioning he is all smiles and winsome charm, and then when they step into a private room the first thing he does is wrap his arm around the throat of his jailer and squeeze.
(He doesn't talk. Where are you from, who are you, what are you doing here? He doesn't talk. He thinks about sugar melting on the tongue, about fish hooks, about dying in a lightless place)
He's taken back to the cage. When he's released days later, given his weapons, his belongings he spends his time disassembling everything. He doesn't know what he's looking for. Something. Something. A tracker in the haft of the trident. Poison. He thinks about mutts, and shudders. Keeps his back to every wall.
Tries, sometimes, to step into the man he'd been in the Capitol. Function over form. He looks for Annie in the sea of faces. He looks for Katniss. Johanna. Anyone. He's felt this alone once before, on the train back from his victory tour.
He repairs nets. Eats in the mess hall. He feels invisible, anonymous. Someone asks his name and he can't reply.
He doesn't track the days. Just knows that on one of them, he gets up and sits down in the mess hall across from someone he's never seen.]
Could use a bit of salt, don't you think?
network | anon
If you could redo a day in your life, would you?
[Idle question. Useless, really. But he isn't going to answer the AI's questions, and he isn't going to announce himself, and he doesn't want to talk while simultaneously recognizing that he's craving human connection, even this bastardized version of it.
So he compromises. He can still deal in secrets, even here.]