farsickness | 🔱 I'm ready for combat, I say I don't want that, but what if I do?

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🔱 I'm ready for combat, I say I don't want that, but what if I do? | OPEN

WHO: Finnick Odair + OPEN
WHEN: Late February
WHAT: Arriving, bolting for the woods, then spying and fishing
WHERE: In the woods, by the river, and around but not in Gazin. You can find him anywhere mentioned in the prompts!
WARNINGS: Arrival prompt has self-harm and blood. Probable trauma/ptsd related trigger-happy twitchiness all around.
NOTES: On arrival, Finnick is wearing just a pair of shorts and a shirt tied around a knife wound on his leg. In all prompts, his face, neck, arms, and legs are covered in scabs or scars from chemical burns.

BEFORE

It was raining in the arena.

Not on Finnick, not in the four-o-clock section where the birds had screamed with Annie's voice. Distant, in the twelve-o-clock section, and Finnick had been staring off into the distance, trying not to look at Katniss and Peeta. He'd dreamed about Annie being tortured, about the things they'd do to her if his panic was deemed to have broken the secrecy of their relationship, and there were Katniss and Peeta in each other's arms, playing out for the camera everything Finnick and Annie were forbidden to have. Loving another victor. Loving them in public, for the whole country to see.

He didn't blame them for it. Not anymore. Not since he saw Katniss' face when he resuscitated Peeta. But that didn't stop it making him sick with longing for everything he can't have.

He'd wished, as he settled down in the sand with one trident cradled in his arm and the other resting across his knees, that he was with Annie. Anywhere but in the sweltering heat of the arena listening to the thunder that signaled the start of the deadly cycle.

And then there was no thunder.

No rain. No jungle. Daylight instead of moonlight.

No heat and he's suddenly aware how very little he's wearing as the cold bites at his bare skin and he shivers.

(It's not the third day. The bread was from Three, it was supposed to be the third day. There was supposed to be a plan, and this isn't it.)

ARRIVAL

Finnick doesn't trust the signs. He doesn't trust the road. He certainly doesn't trust the thought of a settlement, because he's seen what an abandoned city in an arena can do. How easy it is to trap. He spends a few moments staring down the road, then a few more staring into the distance, trying to work out what's just happened.

Then, he draws a knife from his belt, studies the blade for a moment, then presses the point to the skin of his left forearm. He can't actually feel where the tracker is, but it feels like he can feel it. He remembers exactly where they put it. So he presses the blade of the knife into his skin, then stabs, digs, gritting his teeth against the pain as he twists the blade until it finds the repulsive thing and tears it out. He throws it as far as he can, then unties the shirt that's tied around his thigh and tears at the fabric until a strip comes off. It's awkward, bandaging his own arm, but he does it, with nothing more than a hiss of breath through his teeth to show the pain. He wraps his leg back up, sheathes the knife, and takes one trident in each hand as he strikes out into the trees.

If the most important thing was getting rid of the tracker, it quickly becomes apparent that the second thing has to be warmth. Coming from District 4, he feels the cold at the best of times, and he'd been in the heat of the jungle wearing nothing more than his undershorts and the shirt-bandage on his leg. Now, wherever he is, he's freezing. Fire is a risk, the smoke can draw enemies, and his tribute and her allies had killed a girl just last year because she lit a fire. But if it comes down to it, he has a better chance fighting enemies than he does fighting the cold. So he gets as far from the road as he can before the chill starts seeping in, then he starts collecting wood, and soon he's warming himself by a fire and trying to work out what is going on.

He knows it's making enough smoke to draw attention, but he also knows how many tributes die from the elements every year. He'll take the fire over the cold.

LATER

They hadn't had much in the arena, but they'd had more than this. They'd had the spile, and Beetee's wire, and the possibility of help from outside. Wherever this place is, he doesn't have anything more than he'd had on him: two tridents, three knives, the gold bangle, and what was left of his uniform. He needs more supplies, and he needs to understand. So Finnick carefully strikes out towards the city, not on the road, but along it, keeping to cover as best he can. When he reaches a river he stops, drinks a little from the water, but focuses on fishing, because he has to eat.

Once he's done with the river, he continues towards town. Not that he goes into the city, but he does climb a tree not far from the gate (trying to ignore how much that makes his arm and leg hurt) and watch the people coming and going, green eyes narrowed as he studies them.

It makes no sense.

For the next few days, anyone in the area around Gazin might see signs of Finnick's whereabouts: smoke from a campfire, a careful shadow that's not quite moving well enough to avoid being seen not far off the road. Maybe even the feeling that somebody's watching you.

Somebody probably is.

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Cassandra moves, limping but silent, through the forest. It’s second nature, anymore; despite her injuries and how badly she hurts, she still moves as quietly as always. She’s always been good at hiding. It’s just easier in the forest. Less pretence and more just... stealth. She hasn’t been back very long. Just enough to deal with the cart she’d brought back with her from Fallhaven as well as the bits of hydra that it had been filled with, and to set the gifts Alaric and Edda had given her to her room. She ought to have gone to the healer, but she’s never been very good about that. And without Daud to nag her... well, she’s gotten worse.

Now, though, she’s gathering supplies. The aftermath of the battle had used up what supply of salve she had left, and she’s hurting badly enough to need to replenish.

At least, that had been her plan. But the sight of smoke rising through the trees, the smell of it carried on the wind draws her attention, and she moves towards it. Hunters, perhaps? Or travellers? Once she’s closer, she purposefully stops moving so silently, to announce her approach and her presence; not everyone appreciates being snuck up on. “Hail the camp,” she calls in a voice laced with a gentle, proper sounding accent (natural and unaffected), stepping out into view. Hands held up to indicate she’s unarmed.

She's doesn't cut the most imposing figure, just over five feet tall, slight, and clad in travelling clothes, with white-streaked dark curls and big blue-grey eyes. She doesn't cut any sort of imposing figure at all.

Footsteps. Incautious footsteps, not what he'd expect of any of the remaining victors, save maybe Peeta or Beetee, but they don't have the unevenness of Peeta's artificial leg. He's been listening, watching, just like when he'd been standing watch over his allies, but at the sound, he tenses, springs to his feet, snatches up both the tridents.

By the time she calls out, announcing her presence with words whose precise meaning he doesn't understand, Finnick has melted back into the trees. With his weapons.

There's a trident raised and ready to throw when the woman steps out, and he's sure he could launch it before she could react.

But she's not a victor. Because he doesn't know her. Because she's not armed. Because she knows how to signal that she's not a threat, when everybody there had either been an ally, a revolutionary, or a danger.

She might not be an imposing figure, but Finnick is: the better part of a foot taller than her, well-muscled in a way that's very obvious when he's shirtless, with green eyes that are still strikingly brilliant even though the rest of his beauty has been marred by the poison fog. And obviously very confident with the weapon in his hands.

But he hesitates.

She doesn't look an immediate threat, and he has no idea who she is or where they are. So he relaxes, just a little. Not enough that he couldn't defend himself. But enough that he doesn't look like he's about to spear her.

Edited 2021-02-25 12:53 (UTC)

Cassandra is confident that she could defend herself, had the newcomer decided to, in fact, spear her, but she'd rather not have to. It makes for an awful first impression, manhandling someone with a tree. Particularly if that someone doesn't believe in magic or supernatural abilities.

She notices his eyes first (after the fact that he's wielding tridents, of all things), brilliant green… but it's the look in them that catches her. Not anything she can put her finger on, but a feeling. How he's watching her. How he'd been WAITING for her, once she'd let herself make noise.

His injuries.

Whoever he is, he's been through hell. And lost some clothes in the process, it seems. She doesn't know if he'll trust her enough to let her help him, but she has to try. So she takes another step or two forward, slow and careful, hands still lifted. "I have bandages, poultices in my pack," she tells him. "If you'll let me, I can tend your injuries. Patch you up a little bit better." A pause. "And I might have a shirt that will fit you." She's suddenly thankful for her penchant for oversized, cozy tunics and sweaters. It's coming in quite useful. "Although I can't help with trousers. My apologies." It's... faintly teasing, she can't help it, as much as it's also a statement of fact with a very genuine apology.

Edited 2021-02-25 14:46 (UTC)

Two days ago, when Mags was still alive, when so many of them were still alive, he'd faced Katniss Everdeen on the sand by the Cornucopia, with nothing but the golden bangle he's still wearing, his charm, and his instincts to protect him against her arrows. He'd thought that the conversations they'd had over the last couple of days would have been enough to make her hesitate before shooting, to give him an opening.

He recognizes the situation. She's offering ... if not an alliance like he'd offered Katniss, then still something he needs. His arm's still bleeding where he'd cut the tracker out, the wound from Enobaria's knife could use a proper bandage, and he needs more to wear than the remnants of his underwear from the stifling jungle arena in this sudden cold. This, too, is a situation he knows. Sometimes, it's necessary to take the risk for the sake of doing what's immediately important to survive.

"Normally you'd get a better show," he says, wry in response to her teasing, an acknowledgment of the fact that he knows he's filthy, arm blood-smeared and skin scabbed where Haymitch's medicine had helped seal the wounds from the poison fog.

"Consider the lack of pants payment for your help." It's a view that, aside from the injuries, would be worth a lot in the Capitol. If his habitual cockiness is something of a shield, it's also a familiar one that he can throw up to protect himself while he tries to tease out something about someone new.

He steps forward, out of the treeline and back into the clearing where he'd lit the fire and where the stranger is standing, her hands still held up in the same gesture of assurance that she's unarmed.

"If you can, I could use help with this," he says, shifting his grip on the trident so he can turn his left arm towards her, so she can see the blood still soaking through the makeshift bandage.

Steve still does his morning runs and the first time he got a sense of someone staring at him, he didn't pay it much mind. He was moving far too quickly to think of it as anything other than a coincidence. But the second morning, he felt it again, almost in the same place as it happened the morning before. He slows this time, glances out into the tall grass that is still mostly weighted down by the remnants of the winter storms that still keep coming through.

That's when he sees it; a shadowy form in the dim skies of the early morning.

"Someone out there?" he calls out in a normal voice, sounding friendly enough that if it is a person, they wouldn't see him as any kind of threat.

He stands waiting for an answer, wondering if it was just a dog moving from farm to farm as most seem to do around Gazin.

Edited 2021-02-27 18:29 (UTC)

It's quickly become very obvious to Finnick that the people here do not expect attack. They move openly, and most of them don't watch over their shoulders while they do it. Of course, not all of the tributes or the victors watch over their shoulders either. But they do watch. The people he's seen pass by on the road here don't seem to, at least not in any obvious way.

This guy, though, this guy is running, and was running yesterday. That suggests a routine, a level of stability that Finnick isn't expecting.

That's what makes him decide to take the risk of showing himself. Besides, he's still armed, and confident enough in his own abilities to not feel much threat from the stranger, for all the guy is built strong in a way that Finnick associates with Peacekeepers and Careers.

"Yeah." As Finnick steps forward he's not making any concessions to appearing non-threatening, but neither is he making any overt gestures of hostility.

Edited 2021-02-28 01:47 (UTC)

Cassandra waits, not pressing him, not moving closer or doing anything to appear to threaten him. It’s his choice, to let her help or not. She won’t force him to do anything. She knows all too well what it feels like to have all choice taken from you, and she won’t do it to someone else, even a little.

... what? There’s no hiding the sheer confusion on her face at his words. It doesn’t quite add up. Also she’s a bit offended at the thought that she’d require payment to aid him. “My help doesn’t come with a price. I do it gladly. And I’m not certain how your lack of trousers could constitute payment? You’re just cold.” Unless he’s talking about the view? But that still doesn’t make sense.

Once he essentially gives her permission, she moves, drawing supplies out of her pack. A blanket, for start. There’s a tree trunk off to one side that will do, and she drapes the blanket over it. So he won’t get bark in his backside. Then she indicates that he should sit with a tilt of her head. “It’ll be more comfortable for you if you sit down. And make it easier for me to work.”

She starts removing more supplies, and setting them around her while she waits for him to sit, or not. Bandages, clean water, a large vial of honey. And then a second container of clean water, that she unstops and takes a drink from, before offering it to him. “Are you thirsty?” He seems the sort that doesn’t seem inclined to trust strangers (and she understands that particular inclination rather well), but perhaps seeing her drink from it without concern would help.

He's not expecting generosity. Not expecting assistance that doesn't come with strings attached. He'd been in the arena, and he'd been with allies, but even with his alliance, there were games being played behind the scenes, games Katniss and Peeta didn't know but the others did. He doesn't know where he is now but if it's not District Thirteen and he hasn't been rescued by the rebels, he doesn't expect anyone to help him just for the sake of helping him.

The outrageous attempt at flirtation apparently slides off the woman in a way very few people can manage. She doesn't even look flustered like Katniss had, just confused. But if she's confused, there's no point in trying to explain; even Katniss, near-impervious to his charm as she was, had needled him about the price of his company.

He is cold, though. It had been hot and humid in the jungle, and he lives in Four, where the summers are hot and the winters are mild. Even with the fire, he's freezing. Even the shoes he's wearing are entirely wrong for this weather, because they'd been designed to swim in to get away from the plate.

Once she lays out the blanket and starts to prepare her medical supplies, he sits down on the tree stump, though he's eyeing her as she sets out her things. The things she's getting out are what he'd expect to see in the districts, not in the Capitol or in the arena, where medication definitely comes at a price, and a price he knows. He settles so that his bandaged arm is on the side she's on, but he keeps the tridents cradled in the crook of his other arm. He's not letting his guard down.

"I am," he admits. He accepts the offered water with his good arm and takes a long drink from it. They'd had the spile in the arena, but they'd never really had enough because it took so much work to get. When he hands the water back, he nods.

"Thanks. I needed that."

He nods, the movement of his head indicating the injury on his arm. "That's the most recent one. The leg's not too bad but it could use a proper bandage." As for the scabs from the burns, those are self-evident.

If anyone knows about hiding, it's Bucky. He's been hunted and hiding for over a year and he knows the signs of it. It doesn't help that there's smoke from a fire and tracks that aren't quite hidden. Whoever is doing it is good, yes, but maybe not at their best. It's better than the average person, anyway.

It takes him two days to see the shadow and Bucky finally calls out to them. He says it low to keep them both from being seen and to keep from alerting anyone else but he hopes it's loud enough for the hiding person to hear him.

"Hey. I know you're hiding. I'm not gonna tell you it's safe, only you can tell yourself that, but you need anything?"

Career Tributes aren't always known for their survival skills. Their strategy tends to be different, relying on force and power to take and control resources, food from the Cornucopia, whatever shelter they can find, and killing their opponents. It's not that they don't train in survival skills, but they're never prioritized.

Ten years ago, Finnick hadn't played that typical strategy. He'd spent the first week avoiding the other Careers, and that had meant laying low. He still has some of those skills. He'd never had Katniss' light-footed woodsmanship or Rue's ability to keep to the trees and avoid leaving traces, and he still doesn't. But he's still pretty good, assuming the people around here aren't skilled trackers.

I know you're hiding suggests he hasn't been good enough. But like the couple of other people he's met here, the man seems to be trying not to be threatening. It's not just the quiet tone of his voice, it's also what he says.

There are plenty of things Finnick needs. There's always something a tribute needs in the arena, and Finnick knows what he needs: warmth, shelter, rest, a more reliable supply of food than foraging, hunting and fishing in this wintry place. But he's not ready to tell that to a stranger.

"What are you offering?"

He doesn't show himself, but the words are at least an expression that he's not refusing to engage with the guy. For now.

"Food. Blankets, too, because it's not warm enough to camp out here regularly. I can drop them at the edge of the woods right before it turns dark so you're not likely to be seen. I hid my first few days too. It's a smart way to do it. I'd recommend doing your scouting at night - no electricity so the place shuts down when the sun goes down except for the tavern."

These are all the things he'd tell himself and nothing more. Whoever it is doesn't trust this place and Bucky can't blame them. Coming over and telling them that they're safe is stupid - he didn't believe it the first time either and he'd trusted his eyes, his ears, and his left arm.

"I'll get them today if you're interested. You're gonna want to hide your tracks better, though, and your fire. There's a woman who lives deeper in those woods and she might see you. She's not a threat but if you're trying to stay off the radar, keep to the thickets."

When he hands the water back, Cassandra shakes her head. “Keep it. Drink more if you’d like.” She always carries plenty of water on her journeys outside Gazin. He doesn’t let down his guard, keeping his trident in his good arm and watching her warily all the while as she works. She doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t know what sort of world he’s from, what he’s gone through, but she understands how... hard trust can be. She knows it all too well.

She pulls out a flask of alcohol, tugging the stopper out and pouring it over her hands to sterilise them. Then she’s carefully moving close enough to reach his injured arm. She undoes the bandage carefully, gently. Doing her best not to cause him more pain. It’s... unusual, looking more like someone has cut something out of his arm than anything else. But she doesn’t ask questions, just pouring clean water onto a cloth and wiping away the blood so she can get a better look at it.

More alcohol goes over her hands, and then she’s reaching for the large vial of honey, a sizeable viscous dollop of it going onto the wound. It’ll help keep it from getting infected and help it to heal. But she’ll need to change the bandages. If he’ll let her. She places a folded piece of bandage over it, before she starts carefully wrapping his arm in bandages. “I’ll need to change it a few times while it heals, to make sure it doesn’t get infected. If that’s all right?” Her tone makes it clear that if he doesn’t wish to let her, then that’s that. It’s his choice.

Regardless, his leg is next. It might just need a proper bandage in his opinion, but she’s not going to half-ass this healing. What she wouldn’t give for spells like Pike’s...

It's reassuring, in a way, that she doesn't have any of the fancy medicines that cost so much in the arena, or the ones that they use in the Capitol that can heal a tribute's injuries until it's hard to tell there was ever anything there. He's familiar with honey used on wounds; it's one of the few things people in the districts can afford.

He takes another drink of the water, since she's offered it to him. If it's not poisoned - and it's probably not - using it is just sensible. He's been in the jungle for two days with very limited water, and he knows that he should have been drinking more if he could. But he doesn't want to give that information away to this woman if she doesn't know.

When she says that she'll need to change the bandages, he looks up from watching her work, his gaze turning upward without his head moving.

"You probably won't find me again."

He doesn't plan on staying here, especially not since she's found him. In the arena, they'd been able to stake out a position and hold it, because they'd had three skilled fighters. With one, it's safer to move.

He is grateful for the medical care, though, even if he winces as she touches his wounds. He's still, though, and remains still to let her untie the shirt he'd tied so hastily over his leg in the arena. That wound is less recent by several hours than the one on his arm, and less deep: a gash from Enobaria's knife that he'd gotten stopping Brutus from killing Peeta.

Clean bandages will help.

Kneeling is... unspeakably agonizing. Cassandra’s breath catches a little as she tries to breathe through the pain of the injuries she’d received from the hydra. Other than that, though, there’s no outward sign of her discomfort. She is long-practiced at hiding what she feels, physically and emotionally. Keeping all of that from the Briarwoods (showing them weakness, letting them know what she was feeling, how she hurt, was something she had refused to do) had honed her skills in that area. Pelor, what she wouldn’t give for healing magics like Pike’s. She will definitely need to gather supplies for more salve.

“If that’s the only barrier to your allowing me to continue to tend to your wounds, I assure you, I’m better at finding people than you might think.” She offers him a wry little smile as she works. “It turns out being able to find people makes it easier to avoid them. I was the youngest of seven children. Sometimes I didn’t want anything to do with my siblings. So I found where they were and gave it a very wide berth.” She’d wanted places of her own, that she didn’t have to share with everyone bigger and older than she had been. ~~She’d give anything to be able to see them again, now.~~ Her mother had taught her the roguish arts. There’s still not a lock Cassandra can’t pick, thanks to her. And the stealth... well. That had come in quite useful. After the Briarwoods. The training in Rome had only taught her more, only made her more skilled. “Otherwise I can give you some bandages so you can change them yourself. And if something goes wrong, tie a piece of your ruined shirt to a branch on the large tree outside of town to the north. I’m regularly out in Vasari Forest. I’ll see it.”

Using more cloth and clean water, she rinses off the wound on his leg. It’s a little older than the one on his arm; where that one had happened here, the one on his leg had happened in whatever world he’d come from. And much like the first, she pours a sizeable dollop of honey on the wound and places a piece of bandage over it before she starts to wrap it. And. Speaking of whatever world he’d come from... “If it helps at all, you’re not in whatever world you’re accustomed to. As difficult to believe as that may be. You’re not the only one to have found himself here, either. I’ve been here...” she thinks a moment. Pelor, has it been that long? “A year now, I think? Give or take. Although I didn’t exactly come from – ” home isn’t the right word, Whitestone, Tal’Dorei, isn’t home, hasn’t been home in... a very long time. “my original world. There are a handful of us, here, now. We don’t always arrive at the same time, but occasionally there are small groups that do. The nearest town is a place called Gazin. They’re welcoming enough to us.” She doesn’t know if he’ll believe her but he needs to know where he’s found himself, regardless.

The point isn't really whether she can find him or not. It's how much he might not want her to. But he's also aware that she has bandages, alcohol, supplies when he doesn't. He's not carrying bad injuries, considering where he'd been. But he knows how important clean bandages and dressing can be. (10% of tributes die of infection, and the dirty shirt that had been all he'd had as a bandage wouldn't help.

Especially if the rescue plan has gone wrong, which it must have, because he's wherever this is, not District Thirteen.)

"I might be better at hiding than you think," he says, though he says it with a wryness that echoes hers. He's not looking terribly good at hiding now, and he's neither short nor slender like the stranger, who's built much more like Annie than Finnick.

(Annie's the better hider of the two of them, and for a moment he has to fight off a wave of fear at the memory of the jabberjays.)

The art of avoiding attention in the Capitol is hardly what they're talking about, but the art of hiding in the arena is very close, and he'd hidden well enough to take out some of his unsuspecting opponents, ten years ago.

He doesn't flinch as she works on the knife wound. In fact, he watches, impassively studying first the injury then her technique. But he can't remain neutral when she starts talking about the world he's accustomed to, and a town that has a name, with welcoming people. He fixes her with a cool green stare.

"I don't know why you think I'd believe that. Kind of convenient."

It would be a nice thing to believe but he's not stupid. If he's supposed to grasp at the idea of escape when it's so very clear that Snow wants him dead ... well, he's already committed to that, and it's not from this woman or whatever this place is.

She grins, slightly. “Oh, that’s quite possible. And if you truly didn’t wish for my searching for you I would leave you be. As long as you took the bandages and swore to tie that piece of your shirt to the tree if you needed aid, if one of your wounds became septic. I’m not inclined to let someone die, not when I can do something to help.” (That belief has led to her developing a rather... decided lack of concern for her own safety and well-being at times. Like playing bait for Titan-twisted Fauns to capture one in order to learn more about why they were behaving in such a fashion.) Cassandra had learned a great deal in Rome, thanks to those more... trained in the medical arts than she. (An entirely different world’s worth of training.)

“I don’t think anything. Believe it. Or not. Doesn’t change the truth of my words.” It’s spoken matter-of-factly, but it’s plain that she’s not offended by his disbelief and paranoia. Whether or not he believes it won’t change the fact that he’s an entire world away from all that he knows. Perhaps his world is less filled with magic than hers. She’s used to magic, and wish spells, and teleportation spells. If you’re not it’s probably far more difficult to believe... all of this.

Edited 2021-03-04 13:20 (UTC)

Whoever this person is, he's choosing what he's saying very carefully.

If he understands enough about what Finnick's been doing to notice he'd been hiding, and to approach and speak to him in a way that doesn't make it obvious to any unseen onlookers that there's someone hiding nearby, then he probably knows enough to be aware just how important the information he's giving is. And in the arena, information can keep people alive. He's sure that whatever is really going on here, the importance of information is still true.

"I need both," he agrees. "I wasn't prepared for the cold." There's little point in denying it when it's already been suggested. This guy sounds smart enough not to believe any attempt at dissembling. And while Finnick, alone and injured, doesn't want to project weakness, he also doesn't want to miss out on a genuine offer. That's why he has a mostly-clean actual bandage on his arm now instead of a strip torn off his bloodied undershirt.

"Thanks for the warning," he says, continuing to keep his voice low and fairly level. "Wasn't sure if there'd be any good trackers around."

Of course, if he wasn't injured he'd have been doing a better job, but he doesn't need to admit that.

"I know the danger," he agrees, mildly. The hole in his arm is nastier, deeper, messier, than would have been ideal. There was supposed to be a hovercraft waiting for them with all the medical technology needed to patch them up. "I don't plan to die, either." A smile echoing hers flashes across his face, though the amusement appears a little more internal than intended for the stranger.

He doesn't plan to die. He didn't plan to die, whatever Snow may have had in mind (and with those jabberjays so carefully selected, it was nothing good). He might die, it's certainly possible that things could turn out that way, but it's now what he intends to let happen.

"If I start feeling infection setting in, I'll tie the fabric to the tree. I'm good at tying things."

There's no obvious sign of deception in her expression, even under the sharpness of his eyes, that he knows can make liars extremely uncomfortable in the right circumstances. Admittedly, those usually have more seduction involved, but he knows how to be offputting as well as he does alluring.

"Why would I believe something that's not possible? I don't know if this is some new arena, but I know there's nowhere else it could be. There's no world outside Panem."

It's one of the early things they learn in school, and it's repeated every year at the Reaping. Disaster, drought, storms, and the changing seas destroyed everything else.

“Well, good. I’ll hold you to that. To all of it.” Cassandra is utterly unfazed by the sharpness of his eyes or his suspicion. She’ll just have to continue trying. And while yes, she is a very good liar, when she needs to be... she’s not lying at all, now. No matter how much he might believe otherwise, about the truth of where he’s found himself.

She looks up at him with serious blue-grey eyes. “There are other worlds than these.” She ought to know, she’s been to several of them. “I’ve never heard of Panem until just now.” Finishing wrapping his leg, she rises gracefully to her feet. “I know nothing of it, or these... arenas? My world is known as Exandria, I hail from the city of Whitestone, on Tal’Dorei. There’s no such place as Panem, there.”

"There's a handful. Mostly hunters, though. Not many people like me," Bucky elaborates. "I've spent a long time hiding. You want anything else? I'll get it and drop it off with the rest."

Bucky knows what it's like to depend on others and hope they don't turn the knife on you. That's why he reaches down and strips off one of his own knives and puts it on the forest floor so the guy can take it if you want it.

"That's for free. You ever feel safe coming out and want to give it back, go to the tavern and ask for Bucky."

He can't help it; Finnick laughs, but it's not with amusement. It's at the idea that anybody could not know what an arena is. Arenas defined his life and Annie's life and so many others, and they're everything that's wrong with Panem, that Finnick wants to destroy. There can't be anyone who doesn't know what an arena is. They're forced to watch, every year, to gloat in the Capitol and to remember exactly what they've lost - and are losing, and will continue to lose - in the districts.

"And I guess you don't know anything about me, either."

It's stupid to even try to trick him like this. He'd just been in the arena, watched people he's known since he was just a kid die there.

But she's saying it with all the surety of somebody who thinks they're telling the truth. Finnick's good at picking lies, because they give him an opening, a way past the easy masks that everyone wears in the Capitol. She doesn't speak like she's lying. But Finnick's tired and cold, and the fire's all that's staving off being a lot worse than cold. He doesn't understand the point of lying to him when it's clear he's been brought here from the arena for a reason. Even if it's not clear what it is.

He stands up, testing the feel of the bandage on his leg. It's good, firm but not tight, and much better than he'd been able to do himself with just a shirt. And now she's done with the bandages, he can move back closer to the fire.

"Thank you. For patching me up. It's a lot better than I'd done."

Edited (cause closing your italics tags is a good idea, self) 2021-03-06 14:09 (UTC)

I've spent a long time hiding sparks immediate questions in Finnick's head, because isn't that the secret dream so many people have in the districts? To hide, to escape from the Capitol's control even if it meant never being able to live the life you'd previously known? The unspoken wish that fisherfolk share, that maybe you could stay hidden at sea long enough to slip away from the Peacekeepers' surveillance?

But those desires are secret for a reason, and Finnick doesn't trust this stranger or this place enough to voice things that would be considered treasonous if spoken in Panem. Not with so much at stake, or so much he hopes is at stake, back in the Quarter Quell arena with the remaining rebels. (He's not letting himself think what could have happened to them if he's been brought to this place and has no memory of it.)

"That should be enough. I know how to handle myself in the wilderness."

Finnick considers the knife that Bucky's laid on the ground. There's danger in breaking cover, but Bucky's offered an amount of trust in offering the weapon and the supplies.

So Finnick steps out of the dense bushes he'd been using for cover and takes the few steps to pick up the knife. In doing so, he reveals himself for the first time: beautiful, always beautiful, but with his skin covered in scars, his thick bronze hair patchy from the acid burns, his clothes clearly borrowed and ill-fitting.

"Why do you want to help me?" he asks, his voice level. He weighs the knife in his hand, but the gesture isn't threatening, more assessing. Finnick's good enough with knives to know he'll be able to make use of it, along with the ones he had in the arena.

"Not that I'm not grateful, but I am curious."

Bucky can tell that this is a very attractive man when he isn't injured and he has to wonder where these burns (chemical, maybe?) have come from. It seems like he's come from a place that's rougher than most and it reminds him of himself, living a rougher life before coming here to Gazin, and he doesn't think he ought to ask questions about it. It is for him to tell and not for Bucky to pry out. He'd hardly want it pried from him (he's had plenty pried from him over the years) and he's going to respect that with someone else.

"I want to help you because I see myself," Bucky says. He isn't wearing a glove and the glint of his left hand is clearly visible in the light. He hasn't had a kind life himself and helping someone else who is afraid of being hurt again makes him think of all the times that no one ever helped him.

"I haven't had a good life. I've been the guy who hides before and keeps his tracks hidden until I know where I am. It's the least I can do to pass on the help in the safest way I can."

There aren't many people who aren't other victors who can look at Finnick and say I see myself with any sort of credibility. But the way the guy talks, what looks like an artificial arm, and the simple gesture of offering a weapon all indicate that what he's saying is true. It makes Finnick want to ask questions, to find out what his story is that makes him understand Finnick's need to hide when he's not doing it himself. But the questions he wants to ask are the sort of things that can't be asked. There's a lot that goes unsaid, or understated, to avoid the Capitol breaching the one thing that anyone can keep away from them: their own thoughts.

"I understand," Finnick says. Finick hasn't had a good life, either, though he hasn't had to spend it hiding like Bucky says he has. In some ways, Finnick's has been the opposite: always in view, always in the spotlight, trying to steal any chance to escape that observation and control. "Wanting to help someone who reminds you of what you've been through."

In a way, it's what mentoring has been for Finnick: the chance to help somebody survive what he'd been through himself. Now, he's back to being the one who doesn't know what's happening, and he hates it.

"Exactly. If I can help you even a little bit, it's enough."

Giving away a weapon is taking a big chance but sometimes taking a chance on someone can be good. If people hadn't taken a chance on him, he wouldn't be where he is now and he wouldn't be in the place he is - he's recovering, he's becoming the person he used to be. How can he not try to pay it back? How can he let this man be out here in the woods with no protection?

"I'll bring your stuff later on. If I think of anything else you might need, I'll drop it with the rest. I'll bring some gold too so if you do venture into town, you have something to start off with. I work jobs, I have the money to spare. I'm not going to tell anyone you're out here, though. You get to decide when it's safe, not me."

Cassandra looks at him quizzically. And without a hint of recognition on her face, as has been the case since the moment she’s met him. “Should I?” He’s an utter stranger, someone she’s never seen before until now. But apparently he’s rather well known in this... Panem. For whatever this arena is he’s talking about.

He stands up, and she begins to pack up her supplies. Until the blanket, that she folds up and holds out to him with one hand. “Take it.” There’s a gentle, stubborn insistence in her voice. The other is rummaging through her satchel until she pulls out a shirt, large and oversized. Particularly for her; she likes them cozy. At least when it’s just her. “Take them both.”

Edited 2021-03-13 15:57 (UTC)

He's not used to that attitude from strangers coming without a cost. Victors help each other because they understand, but in Panem, nobody really understands what it's like to be a victor except the other victors. The strangers Finnick meets don't understand, know him as the beautiful face from their television, and the licentious playboy who comes with that beauty. They don't want to help, they want to have.

But there's nothing like that here, in the way Bucky's talking. There's no adoration or desire in the way Bucky's looking at him. There could be traps hidden in the offer, but Finnick needs the help, and he knows it.

"Thank you."

He hadn't considered needing gold, himself. Finnick's been focused on immediate needs and how to get them out of the environment: warmth, food, shelter. Jobs and money are concerns for the districts, not the arena. But he doesn't want to admit that uncertainty or that he hadn't thought that far ahead.

"I'm not in a position to turn down help." That much is surely obvious, for all Finnick's caution and unwillingness to reveal much of his situation. "I can come back at sunset."

Finnick is staring at her as she asks the question, studying her face for any sign that she's pretending. He doesn't see any. That confusion looks real, and it's the first thing that comes close to piercing Finnick's certainty that she's part of some sort of trick. He hasn't met someone who didn't already know his name since he was fourteen. The whole of Panem watched him in the arena, and watched him grow up after he won. They saw him every year at the Games, speculated about his love life, lusted after him.

But this woman with the strange accent and the attitude unlike any stranger he's met in a long time says she knows nothing about him.

He takes the blanket with a nod, then sets it down near the fire to pull the shirt on over his head. It doesn't fit well; unsurprising, since the girl is built more like Annie than like Finnick, but it's a layer of warmth against the wintry cold.

"Haven't met anyone who didn't know the details of my life since I was 14."

Given that he's very obviously an adult now, fatigue and stress making him look a little older than his twenty-four years, that was a long time ago.

"Thanks," he says, gesturing to the shirt.

When Bucky comes back to the edge of the woods, he has a whole host of things. He's got blankets, food, a tinderbox, gold - everything he can think of that Finnick might need for an extended stay in the woods. He's grateful that his strength lets him carry so much in a single trip so he looks less suspicious coming to this spot over and over because the last thing he wants to do is betray the other man's trust even if it's on accident.

He drops it at the edge of the woods and whistles, letting him know that he's there, and waits a few minutes to see if he shows.

He'll leave if Finnick doesn't come in the next little while and assume that the package will be taken into the woods when he feels safe to come out and get it but for now he wants to make sure that it's been received and to check on him the way only a handful of people have ever checked on himself.

Finnick has actually been here since before sunset. He's sitting in the branches of a pine tree and waiting, and watching. He's not sure what to make of Bucky and his offer, but ... everything about the man had seemed genuine. Not that he wasn't hiding things or might not have a lot more than he wasn't saying. But there'd been something real in the way he'd said he saw something of himself in Finnick.

That was the same instinct that makes Finnick try to reach out to new victors, no matter their district, if they look like they need it. And Finnick does need the help, with nothing but the weapons he'd had when he was sitting watch and the few things he's been given here.

So when he hears Bucky's whistle, Finnick shimmies down from his tree and peers out to see if Bucky's alone. He is; he'd promised not to tell anyone Finnick was out here and while there's no way of telling if he'd stuck to that, or would stick to it, he hasn't brought anyone here so far.

Finnick takes that as a small further sign of sincerity, and steps out of cover.

(That he's still got his trident is a given.)

"Guess you're good for your word."

Or part of it, anyway.

"Always try to be. I've got everything we talked about and decided you might need," Bucky says, cocking his head at the bundle of supplies he's brought. He doesn't want this guy, this Finnick, to starve or freeze out here in the woods while he's trying to evaluate if the town and people are still safe.

"Least I could do for you. If there's anything else you need, I know how to find you. I can come by every couple days and ask if you'd like. I'll keep it secret, though. I don't want anyone else sussing you out while you're still trying to keep hidden. Want you to stay safe and anonymous if that's what you want."

It's the least he can do, catering to someone who seems like him in some ways.

Jon is in the habit of going out and doing some camping of his own, on average one night a week. Not that Westeros has the concept of weekends, or even days off. He just has found that he likes being outside of the town for a time, and will just have to make sure he's back at the stables tomorrow in time to tend to the horses.

It also gives him an opportunity to give one of the horses some exercise, such as the roan stallion he's chosen to ride today. The wyvern, Surmund, whom he hasn't quite yet come to think of as his, will usually fly along, generally within sight.

His camping trips, as it happens, have also turned into a good way to meet people.

So when he notices the smoke from a campfire, he turns his horse in its direction. He dismounts when he gets closer, so that when he gets within sight of Finnick, he's leading the horse behind him. "Good evening," is his simple greeting to the builder of the campfire. It's a friendly tone, or at least that's his intention, but he does have a knife at his waist and a bow and arrows slung over his shoulder.

He still can't read behind Bucky's offers of help. Everything he can see and hear says that the man's being truthful, and the sentiment of having been in hiding himself and wanting to help Finnick hide sounds real. He's never seen anyone convincingly lie about that sort of shared understanding -- other victors have it and most people in the Capitol wouldn't even think of it to lie about it.

He doesn't like putting any level of trust in a man who's a completely unknown quantity, but he doesn't have a lot of other choices.

Finnick crouches by the bundle, one hand pulling aside the blankets to look at what else is there: food, tinder, the promised gold, as strange as the thought of needing gold is to him.

He straightens and prods the bundle with a foot still inappropriately clad in the light shoes that had been designed for the conditions of the jungle arena.

"I should be okay with these. I've survived in the wild before."

Finnick hears the horse before he sees the man. He's been beginning to get used to the sounds of the forest here over the days he's been staying here. So he can distinguish the sound of the horse; he knows that from Panem even though he sees few horses in District Four.

Unlike when he'd first been approached just after he'd found himself here, Finnick doesn't try to hide himself at the man's approach. He's prepared to defend himself, but he can throw a trident in a deceptively short about of time, so while he's standing, he's not actually making any obviously threatening gestures.

Instead, he returns the man's greeting with a nod.

Finnick notices the weapons, but he also notices that the bow is slung over the man's shoulder and the knife is sheathed. Finnick would bethe could attack first if it came to it; his trident is within easy reach.

All of that tactical analysis means he can afford to greet the man with something like friendliness himself.

"Hello. Didn't expect to see anyone out in the forest this late."

Finnick, of course, is also out late, but he's been sleeping out here.

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🔱 I'm ready for combat, I say I don't want that, but what if I do? | OPEN

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SORRY FINNICK YOU HAVE CONFUSED HER

WOW CASS THAT VIEW IS WORTH A LOT OF MONEY TO SOME PEOPLE

later

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(so much) later

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