sixthiterationlogs | ψ It's hard to have faith when faith is a crime

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ψ It's hard to have faith when faith is a crime

WHO: Finnick Odair
WHERE: Fountain park + outlying areas of the town
WHEN: September 2
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: References to violence, descriptions of anxiety.
STATUS: OPEN

FOUNTAIN PARK

There's water.

Not just a little water, but water on all sides, water waving through his hair and pulling on his clothes, with all the warm disorientation of being on the edge of drowning. At first the water simply sweeps over and around him, but he needs to breathe and the empty feeling in his chest drags his mind out of whatever haze it's been in.

There's water, water everywhere, so he swims, and somehow he's pointed upwards, gaining momentum faster than he should have been, and now his mind's working more clearly, it's beginning to race. There's light, light up above him, but everything's heavier than it should be, and he doesn't know where he is.

Why doesn't he remember getting in the water?

But when his head breaks the surface, it's not to the cool salt-smell of the beaches of District Four, it's to the river-rapid sound of a fountain gushing water into itself.

That's what makes his gut clench in sudden fear. That, and looking down to see he's wearing some sort of red garment he doesn't recognize. For a moment, he stops gulping air. He stops treading water in the impossible fountain.

He freezes, and he can't move again for too many agonizingly long moments.

"On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

He'll never forget Snow's words, he's sure, and the way they'd rung dully in his head with the screams of the arena. That's what makes him fling himself forward to the edge of the fountain, covering the distance in a single strong stroke, and haul himself out of the water.

He lands on heavy-booted feet, and he's already looking around for the things he should see. Other tributes. Weapons. Supplies. The cornucopia. The slaughter of the bloodbath. He tenses to sprint, looking and looking, but there's no sign of the giant horn, just something that looks like parkland and a few buildings, like the middle of a town, but sullenly quiet.

His senses are screaming at him: where are they? and every muscle is taut with fight-or-flight tension.

OUTLYING HOUSES

It's much later that Finnick makes his way back to the town. He's been to the woods, gone through the backpack that had been on him when he pulled himself out of the fountain, and there are several things that he's missing. Water. Food. Any sort of weapon.

His immediate plan is to raid some of the outlying houses, see if he can find a knife, food, anything he can use. The lack of a cornucopia has made things difficult; maybe that's all part of the plan for how to make this Quell more interesting, but it means he doesn't have any way to fight. A knife, too, would help him to harvest some vines for a net, grass to weave for a shelter, so many of the things that he needs if he's going to be able to avoid town well enough to stay alive.

He's seen enough Hunger Games to know a location as enticing as this mostly-abandoned town is a trap, which is why he'll be watching very carefully as he approaches, ducking into what cover he can find. (He's ditched the red shirt: white isn't much better, but rubbing the tank top into the dirt had helped dampen the color a little.) So when he ducks into the first house he targets, it's quickly, quietly, in-and-out and without anything useful. It's already been ransacked.

What sort of a Hunger Games doesn't have any weapons?

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The fountain had been a stopping point for Riza the past few days now. Not only did it seem important to keep an eye out for new appearances, but she was curious if the seemingly ordinary watering hole was somehow tied to the last multi-dimensional project she'd been forced to take apart in. She would be lying to herself is she didn't admit that part of her was hoping that the next time she came by here that Harry would emerge from it's depths. But, honestly, as the days went by she'd even be happy to see Wolf and Giselle, or Rosette, or Sora. Of course, she also thought about seeing the Colonel or someone else from the military appear here, but she might finally have to come clean with them about some things she'd kept hidden. The longer the fountain went without spitting a familiar face out, the more certain Riza became that this place wasn't connected with her past experience at all.

And honestly, she wouldn't wish this place on anyone: experience or not. She certainly knew the Colonel would be better off back in Amestris than emerging here.

She hadn't given up investigating the fountain yet though, which was why her timing seemed to be so good that she was walking down one of the paths when she heard splashing sounds and the sloshing of water hitting the ground. The trees that surrounded the fountain meant that she could choose to either watch and see who it was or approach openly. Riza took advantage of her light grey scrubs and slipped against a tree to at least glimpse who it was before approaching. However, even with her sharp eyes, she couldn't quite make out who it was through all the branches obstructing her way (not to mention the figure had their back to her).

Riza was patient though and decided to hang back and watch for a few minutes. As a sniper she was good at hiding her presence when she needed to, and watching before approaching was a good way to avoid a bad situation. He was soaking wet, just as she had been when she'd arrived. It wasn't surprising that he seemed lost and seemed to be looking for something specific. He was tall and well-built, wearing a set of red scrubs -- the colors a mystery to everyone here apparently. She decided it would probably be a good idea to approach. Riza could at least reassure herself with the fact he had no weapon -- though she didn't either. But when you'd survived all the things she had, you tended to feel pretty confident in your ability to handle yourself.

Although, she was pretty sure she'd yelled at Harry for doing something similar before. Riza stepped away from the trees and approached the young man openly now -- hoping that would at least demonstrate she wasn't trying to sneak up on anyone.

He looks ready to run...or fight, it's hard to tell. Riza keeps her hands at her side and in sight -- unfortunately she's weaponless too, "Hello? What are you looking for?"

Cougar's checked out the bow and arrow to go hunting, but also to make sure that it's being taken care of. The last thing he wants is to have to lose this weapon because someone didn't understand how it worked, but it seems like it's still in good shape, so no one's head is getting an arrow through it. He's managed to collect some fowl and two hares and is stringing up the latter when he hears sound in his periphery. Alert, now, Cougar lifts himself from his knee in the dirt to search the area around him.

He sees it, then, the movement coming out of a house. Cougar watches the boy carefully, slinging the dead animals over his wrist as he slides the bow onto the makeshift support on his back, his self-carved arrows tucked into a semi-holster at his waist.

He tips his head to one side and waits until he has the boy's attention. "Is that yours?" he asks pointedly, because even though he's never seen him before, he also doesn't think that anyone new has laid claim to the house, which means he's looting. Not that Cougar disapproves, but he can't help amusing himself with a little fun like this.

In Finnick's direction of travel on his quest to ransack houses, another of the town's prisoners is nearby, and he's on an equally important job.

It's not outrunning sphinx automata intent on biting his throat out, or facilitating trades of priceless books in the dead of night, or storming secret prisons. It's... plucking dandelions and other edibles and putting them into a pail at his side. Not exactly the kind of heart-pumping, life or death adventure Jess is used to, all things considered.

The grassy clearing he's ventured into is dotted with yellow, and Jess sits on his knees in the middle, a grey-clad figure methodically collecting what he's sure is going to thrill Raven. Yum, dandelions, her favorite.

Weapons are a tricky thing to acquire in this town. One of the knives Jess had brought with him in case of tough roots that need cutting is plunged into the dirt by his pail: a bone knife, sharpened to a wicked edge.

This isn't how the Games start. There's supposed to be that precious time when the tributes stand on their plates, waiting, tension screaming through their bodies to run run run though it would mean their deaths to move before the gong sounds. That time is for orientation, for planning, to find the cornucopia and the nearest cover and work out how to get to one from the other. To decide what weapons to grab from the enticing collection of supplies.

There'd been no warning, no countdown, and there is no cornucopia. Are no other tributes, and everything that's wrong is crawling up Finnick's spine and clawing at his nerves, begging him to run while he's just trying to think.

This isn't how the Games works, and he doesn't remember being Reaped, or trained, or any of it. It wasn't time for the Quell yet.

And yet ... only children are Reaped. Victors are safe from further Reapings. Two things he's known with his whole being for as long as he can remember, and those two things were thrown away. What else that he knows might have changed? Is this another year when they're going to have to tear each other to death with sticks and stones because there are no weapons?

He's not sure how long he's been standing there when he sees the movement from the trees, but it's too long, too long, and he should have run before now, run for cover, instead of leaving himself open and exposed like this.

The woman, though, isn't holding a weapon. She's very carefully not holding a weapon, arms still, hands visible, all those signs that mean I mean no harm. Parley. But as she moves closer, he frowns.

"Who are you?"

He doesn't recognize this woman, which means one thing: she's not a victor.

Finnick thought he'd been careful. He'd meant to be careful, slip in and out unnoticed, gather a few things before he heads back for the forest. He has no interest in sticking around the town where more people and, therefore, more danger, are likely to be. Coming back had been a calculated risk, and breaking into the houses is as well, but he needs something, ideally a knife. A knife can clean fish and game, can shape wood, can cut vines too strong to break by hand. He'd never prepared for an arena with no weapons. He's a Career: that's not meant to happen to a Career.

The problem with taking a calculated risk, though, is that it's still a risk. And the biggest risk is as he slips into and out of the abandoned houses, because the doorways are unavoidable choke points.

Still, he thinks he's made it until he sees the man, and the first thing he focuses on is the bow on his back. It's plain Finnick's been seen: the man is looking right at him, watching him, yet he hasn't picked up the bow or reached for an arrow. But there's no point in running. The shrubs and trees Finnick had used as cover in his first approach to this house are too far away to make a break for. Even having to pick up and draw the bow, the man could still shoot him dead before he made it. So Finnick, impossibly vulnerable with no weapon to his name, has no real choice but to answer the guy.

Finnick still has the black backpack that had been on him when he'd hauled himself out of the fountain, and though his red pants and white tank top have been smeared in dirt and grass to dull their colors, they're still very obviously the clothes he'd had when he pulled himself out of the fountain.

"Is that yours?" he replies, nodding his head towards the bow. "Is any of this anyone's until they take it?"

Of course not. That's not how the arena works.

She's been kicked out of the kitchen. Oh, all very nicely. Politely. With concern, by all these people who have chosen to fuss over her. Over her ankle. Over her standing, when she's perfectly capable of judging the pain for herself.

That she decides to sit on the Inn's porch instead of going upstairs to her room is merely because the air is nice, and she's close to the kitchen, and has nothing to do with not wanting to test her ankle hopping up the stairs.

And she'll have no one doubt her on that, thank you all very much.

So it is that Kate is sitting on the steps, head resting against the pillar, half-dozing. She's not sure what it is that makes her open her eyes, but she does. And when she does, she sees a young man dressed in red, red, red, leaving the fountain park. She's not: blue skirt, white blouse. But she knows that their captors have assigned red as her colour - whatever that means - and more than that, it's the way the man is moving. Quietly. Stealthy as a cat, with a suggestion of an agitated swish of the tail.

He's a strange, this bronze-haired man, so Kate pulls herself up, using the pillar as a support.

"Hello! Are you new?"

Edited 2016-09-04 11:49 (UTC)

He's moving as quickly and stealthily as he can in red (red, red, red, and annoyance that it's a bad color on him is less important than the worry because it's so bright, so obvious, here in the middle of town), skirting the edges of the road and moving behind and under trees, around buildings. Keeping to cover, because he has no weapon and no way of telling what weapon anyone else here might have.

He's startled by the call ringing across the road that runs between the park where he'd first appeared and the large building he'd been avoiding. Startled, but there's no point in pretending he hadn't heard.

That makes the second person to try to speak to him, not kill him.

He doesn't, though, understand her question. So he stops in the shade of a tree, back to the solid certainty of its trunk, and studies her.

She's not wearing the uniform he's in, nor the grey version the first woman he'd met had on. Where did she get clothes? No mentor would make that gift, it's useless. Especially not to someone with a clearly injured ankle.

"What do you mean, 'new'?"

The boy, he thinks, hasn't seen him.

The boy hasn't seen him, but he has a knife, the thing Finnick needs and hasn't yet found. And if anyone here had shown a sign of wanting to attack him, he could make a pre-emptive attack. Except that the boy is no older than the tributes Finnick's seen die year after year, and he's just gathering food.

Yeah, he's seen plenty of tributes eat dandelions, and not always for the better.

"You sure those are good to eat?" He probably shouldn't speak out, but.

He's seen too many kids die, whatever the danger to himself might be.

"Borrowed," is Cougar's response as he lets his gaze slide over the boy and how he's acting. It makes him raise his eyebrow, but maybe he's not entirely surprised. People act strangely all the time, why shouldn't they act even stranger in a situation like this? "Tonight, I give it back." With the food he's good to share, of course, but that's the whole point of checking it out. Soon, he will have to start teaching, but that will require him to learn how to start speaking, too.

He raises his brow and gestures towards him. "Check Inn," he says. "Jo has information about what is available for trade. Easier than pillaging," he points out.

Raleigh doesn't really think of this place as dangerous as far as the people go. The people all seem to be friendly enough and work together; it's the environment that seems to be out to get them. When he sees the guy going in and out of a couple houses, he wonders what he's after. They mostly pool resources here, after all, and it's a little unusual.

After spotting him at the third house, he calls out. "Hey, is there something in particular you're looking for? I might be able to give you better direction than just trying to scavenge these empty houses."

She is careful not to move in much closer. If she gets too close, she risks compromising herself to attack or spooking the man who is clearly lost here. If she keeps too much distance, however, it will make her seem suspicious and might betray a sign of weakness. It was a skill she'd picked up as a sniper and as someone used to watching others. You learned how to read other people in order to survive.

Riza wonders why his first question is that of her identity and not about the specifics of where he is or what's happening. Granted, everyone tends to handle arrival differently, she knew that much from her year in Manhattan. The young man in front of her can't be older than she is, but he doesn't appear to be much younger either. He's certainly older than Edward, but there's something in his eyes that Riza recognizes and that could be making him look older than he is as well.

She does't find it reassuring either way.

"Riza Hawkeye," she says in an even tone. "Who are you?"

But the boy knows when he's been seen. The feeling of being watched pricks his neck, settling over Jess with the familiarity of pulling on a favorite shirt. A feeling of someone watching nearby in the here and now, not the general sense of knowing his captors are out there.

Jess' head comes up, and he casually scans the area until he's able to pinpoint the source.

Ah, that would explain it. Getting eyed up by men and women in red uniforms had been an average day in London, and that was if they weren't already thundering down back alleys in pursuit of him. Spotting the young man in red coming from the direction of the houses almost makes Jess miss home for an instant. Almost.

"Pretty sure. I've eaten them before and been none the worse for it," he answers, adding the dandelion in his hand to the pile and brushing his hands off. "You're a new face. Haven't seen you around before."

Hmm, well, all right. She knows what it is like to be studied, intent eyes on her and what she might be hiding - be it behind her expression or behind her person, her clothes. But she's not on a stage to toss her head high and play the wild-spirited thing, she's in a strange prison and this man seems to be another captive.

So she just lets him stare, and resists the urge to curl her hands into fists.

"As in just arrived. There's a few of us here now. All arrived from the fountain not knowin' why. You the same?"

She's not a victor, but she's too old to be a tribute. Yet she moves like she knows how to handle herself, and she watches with the cautious assessment he'd expect of a tribute, one of the smart ones. And there she is, standing in front of him dressed in a different colored version of the uniform he's wearing.

What she says, though, is the thing that makes him give a huffed scoff of laughter.

"You're kidding, right?"

He hasn't had to introduce himself since he was fourteen. Not really. Not in any more than the show-off ostentation of bragging with the introduction at a social event, introducing himself to the media or the gathered room and reminding them all just what his name means.

Finnick Odair, Victor of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games.

Riza has mastered many talents and gifts in her years as a soldier for Amestris. Among the military there are perhaps three things she is known for. The first is her keen eyesight and ability with firearms. The second is her loyalty to a certain Flame Alchemist. The third is her serious, no-nonsense attitude. There's a reason she's lasted so long as the Colonel's right hand woman. Most people saw her as harsh and she had long ago mastered the sort of "look" you would give to soldiers who wanted to treat you like you were stupid or lesser. She didn't tolerate it from her fellow soldiers and she wasn't about to let that reputation go.

So, when Finnick scoffs at her and looks at her like she's either stupid or crazy, she returns with merely a dead panned gaze. It's a serious look that hopefully conveys that she is not joking about this. She is completely serious and she isn't going to let you make her feel like she's stupid.

But, just in case her expression alone doesn't convey this, she adds, "No. I'm not." Her tone is even and she doesn't sound angry or even annoyed -- mostly it comes across as bored.

Edited (different icon) 2016-09-08 01:53 (UTC)

She's really not kidding. It's not just her indifferent tone that says it, it's the way she looks at him, like she's challenging him to dare to talk to her like that again. Finnick's not a man to intimidate easily, certainly not with a glare from somebody unarmed and professing not to know him.

Not many people have ever managed to sound bored the first time they meet him. At least, not many people who weren't victors trying to play mind games with him as a mentor for the competition.

His head tilts a little to one side, his expression faintly curious.

"Finnick Odair."

Then, after a pause, he adds, "Victor of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games?" It's a question, but it's not questioning the truth of his own words, but a prompting for Riza Hawkeye, because since, somehow, she's managed not to know his name (as impossible as that seems), surely the Games will be enough of a prompt to remind her.

Everyone knows the Games.

And once again Finnick is wrong. Riza knows where this conversation is going. It happens every time someone appears in a new place expecting it to have the same rules, history, and familiarity as their home world. Riza was used to it after spending a year in a world she'd never even heard of and that had never heard of her home country either. It had taken some getting used to, but by the time she'd returned home she'd learned about a lot of things that had never existed for her before.

The difficult part was always convincing others that you weren't crazy when you started talking about places that didn't exist and a history that never happened. It would be especially challenging here because there was no way to prove anything she said. There was no way to get people to back her up either, since she was alone with Finnick.

At least she had a name now, although the next part he shares only raises more questions. She's unfamiliar with anything called the Hunger Games. Although the implication that there is a "victor" and that it's a big event for her to be expected to recognize it, tells her a lot.

She takes a breath, because she knows it's only inevitable that this conversation go this route and she's about to probably sound crazy, at least to him. "Sorry, but I'm not familiar with any games and this is my first time hearing that name. I realize that must be surprising, but suffice it to say you're very far from wherever it is you call home right now. You're going to come across this sort of reaction fairly often."

He'd thought he was better than this. This is the second person who's spotted him as he's gone about his search for a weapon, but it's hard to break into houses without being seen when there are, by nature, a limited number of ways to get into a house, and through the door is easier and attracts less attention than through the windows. Or so Finnick thinks: he'd hardly been trained for housebreaking.

That knowledge doesn't make him less irritated with himself when he hears the voice.

He has, at least, found a jar that he'll be able to use to store water once he heads back out into the woods, but he's still after a decent knife. And he doesn't want to be in this strange little not-quite-abandoned settlement for too long, so after a long moment of studying the man, trying to read any trap in his face, Finnick calls back.

"I need a knife."

It's a gamble, yes, but ... any arena involves the need to assess potential alliance as much as when to fight.

Everybody knows the victors. Maybe not all of them, true, at least not by name. But everybody watches the Games. Everybody sees the mentors and the victors who return to the Capitol each year to watch the annual spectacle of its power over their districts. And there's always a fuss over Finnick Odair. Who he's sleeping with now, who he'll be sleeping with next, who he's not sleeping with anymore, and when the commentators feel like paying attention to what he's actually there for, his strategy, his tributes, mentoring.

At what she says, though, the confusion freezes in his chest. That can't be true. It's not possible.

(Is it a trick? Is this a trap to lure him into saying something about the revolution? If so, it's a stupid, stupid trick. Does Snow think he's that much of a fool?)

"That's not possible," he says, his voice softer than it had been, but still firm.

"There isn't anywhere habitable outside Panem."

Everybody knows that. Everybody.

"Someone lent it to you?"

That can't be right. Not here, not now. Not unless he's got a very good alliance and something happened to his own weapon. Right now, Finnick would even settle for a bow, as much as it's far, far from his chosen skillset to use one.

The man has a heavy accent, but Finnick's still fairly sure he knows what he's saying. That doesn't mean that he understands. Because who sets up any sort of wide-scale trading in the arena? Nobody, because what you have is what will help you survive, and that's not an advantage you give away to anyone else.

Maybe he'll have to check it out for himself, except that would mean going back to the Inn -- he'd seen that on the sign at the building across the road from the fountain.

"What sort of things do people trade?"

It's a stall for time, but the question will do, for now.

"There's a few in these houses but they're all pretty dull," Raleigh admits. Most of what he's found in the last few weeks has been primitive and half broken at best, downright useless at worst.

"Depending on what you need it for, we found some stuff in a settlement outside this village. We took it all to the inn for everyone to use. If you're using it for hunting or fishing or something, I'm sure you can borrow one."

Cougar shrugs, because while he would have preferred to keep it to himself, he also hadn't wanted to start an all-out brawl that would have left no one a winner and everyone an enemy. So, yes, he is willing to share. "I hunt," is all h e says, eyeing the boy curiously for his questions.

"We trade food. Necessities to survive." He adjusts the bow on his back, raising an eyebrow to ask why this is such a strange idea to him. "Do you not want to trade?"

His world must be pretty terrible if there is nothing alive outside of Panem. She doesn't know how big Panem can be -- the name, like everything else he's been saying, means nothing to her. She can tell, though, that this is going to be very difficult to convince him of and she's not sure how to go about it. Again, she doesn't exactly have evidence. Not to mention his tone and demeanor make her think he is difficult to earn the trust of in a normal situation. This is far past normal.

"It is. It took me awhile to accept it too." Although, she doesn't mention that this isn't her first time having to experience another world. Granted, she hasn't exactly dropped that bomb on him yet, but she can feel it coming.

She wishes she could be softer, but she doesn't think that will get her anywhere either. This doesn't seem the kind of person to respond to sympathy and it would probably be even worse if he took it as pity. It wouldn't have been, but she knew how it could be seen. So, she keeps her stance firm and her gaze serious, even cold.

"I know there's no way you're going to believe me or have any reason to trust me. But I have nothing to gain from lying to you either. As I've already said, I don't even know you or where you come from." She decides to prove this by confessing, "I'm from a country known as Amestris. We were a major military power where I'm from--but I'll bet you've never heard of it either." Riza had never been one to pull her punches and could sometimes be a little too blunt. It wouldn't do her any good to lie though or tell it to him softly.

The boy recognizes he's being watched before Finnick calls out to him. Finnick's sure he hasn't made any audible sound, so that's the only explanation for the way the head comes up, the cautious way the he looks around. It's the sort of skill not enough tributes have, despite the fact that they have, all of them, been victims of the Capitol all their lives.

It's a good skill, knowing when you're being watched, like an extra danger sense that can be life or death in the arena.

"Do they actually taste any good?"

Not that it matters. When you need to eat, you need to eat, and pride is a very secondary consideration to survival.

The comment about the 'new face' is just as unsettling and unfamiliar as some of the other things Finnick's seen since he dragged himself out of the fountain. People greeting him, making conversation, telling him impossible things. It sets off a feeling of wrongness deep under his skin, a tension he can't ease because it's so pervasive.

He doesn't let that show, though.

"Thought we were all new here. Sounds like you're not."

Jess wouldn't call himself a victor of much, but it's true that he's learned to stay a few moves ahead of people--and that can't happen by being unaware of your surroundings. If it comes down to fight or flight, he has the knives he'd sharpened from old metal and bone on the one hand, and plenty of avenues of escape on the other.

But an educated guess tells him he's not the one feeling threatened here.

The corner of his mouth lifts in the faint beginnings of a smile. "It's an acquired taste, but you get used to it," he says. As he takes the other's measure, he recognizes that the older man is taking his. For Jess not to have him added to his mental catalogue of residents, he must be fairly new, or else incredibly good at keeping his nose to the ground. The handsome features could easily have landed him a job on the stage back home, but the muscular build and the way he's darkened his shirt to blend in tell a different story. Finnick could just as easily belong to the High Garda with that level of stealth.

"For a relative definition of 'new'. Been here about five weeks myself, all total. It's a small group; when new people join the fold, they tend to stand out, no offense. I'm Jess. If it's food you're looking for, we've got... well, not a lot, but enough."

But at the rate they're bringing in strong men who need protein in their diets, who knows how long that'll stay true. Still, he's not in the habit of withholding rations should Finnick have arrived on an empty stomach.

She could have everything to gain from lying to him. It depends on who she is, what game she's playing, because in an arena, everyone is playing everyone else for a game. That's how it works and how it's always worked. What she's saying is dangerous, treasonous even, because it's not what they're taught. The most anyone ever says even in whispers is that District Thirteen survived destruction after the war. That much he believes is true, now. But surely, surely, there's nothing outside Panem. That world was destroyed, ravaged in the cataclysm that left only Panem struggling to survive.

It's everything he knows, and the only reason anyone could be trying to tell him otherwise is to trap him. It must be.

That's why he doesn't let any doubt flicker across his face, though he's feeling so much of it.

"There is no other country. There were, a long time ago, but they were destroyed. Nobody can live there now."

Even as he says it, though, it sounds weak, because there never was much on the detail of what happened, how a world that used to know a place called North America became the single broken nation of Panem. And she's telling her story so well.

Finnick knows lies and stories and games, and she's very, very good at what she's doing. So good that even with everything he knows, the unyielding sternness of her expression makes him far more uneasy than it should.

It doesn't take much reading between the lines to guess that Katniss Everdeen had known how to hunt long before she stepped foot in the arena of the 74th Hunger Games. That this man hunts isn't reassuring. It's threatening. It means he'd be able to kill with that bow when he tried. He hunts, that's no reason for any tribute to lend him a bow.

Yet the man is looking at him like Finnick's strange for being surprised. For asking questions. For not expecting some sort of trading arrangement in the middle of the arena.

"Didn't expect anyone here would want to. Not exactly what usually happens."

Cougar could ask him about the way he's talking, like he has some kind of idea of what's going on here instead of being in the dark like the rest of them. That said, Cougar also isn't the type of person who uses words to pry and prod, so much as he just observes quietly and just watches the situation.

So when the boy is talking about trading being rare, all he does is raise his eyebrow and shrug. "Not rare to want to stay alive," he points out. He narrows his gaze at him and gestures for him to come with him. "Come, I'll show you where we keep things."

"I know why I'm here." He doesn't need to be told. That's the one thing he knows, if not for certain, then for certain enough.

He knows he's here because of Snow, because of the Quell, because this year it's victors. Whether he's here as some sort of punishment he's less clear on: he doesn't remember his Reaping. He doesn't know whether he was Reaped or volunteered, or if it was random or rigged against him. (What Reaping would ever be easier to rig than one with just a few names in the bowl?)

How can she not know? Or is this some other trick like the woman who'd tried to convince him that there was somewhere outside of Panem that people lived.

Why does nobody here think of weapons? And why do they think of using them to find food instead of for anything else? Yes, food is a vital part of surviving, and nobody wins the Games without a plan to find food. But Finnick is trained to think and plan like a Career, and that means working out how to eliminate the opposition.

Nobody needs to ask why someone needs a knife in the Games. So the fact that this man doesn't seem to know what Finnick would want one for is enough to make the victor change tack, hoist his sails and set a new course. Everyone here so far has been focused on survival against the environment rather than each other. He can play that part.

"I need it for fishing," he says. "I'll need to clean my catch."

He needs to find out more about this supposed alliance.

"I think I can help you with that," Raleigh says, giving him a little grin. "Good to see another fisherman's showed up. I've kind of been doing it by myself for a little while."

He extends a hand to him, wanting to shake. "I'm Raleigh Becket, by the way. Since I don't know your face, I'm guessing you came in recently?"

It's always difficult when someone tells you that you are lying or crazy. He hadn't used those words, but that was the implication in his tone and body language. Riza sometimes thinks it would be easier to believe them. To pretend like what happened to her Manhattan had just been a crazy dream. However, that wasn't true and she couldn't hide from her past. And she wasn't about to let some kid tell her she was wrong.

"There's several. Amestris, Drachma, Xing, Creta, Aerugo," she insists. She takes a deep breath and moves on to the hard stuff, "And that's just countries. We're not even getting into the other worlds out there. Which is why I know the names of those countries and why you have your Panem."

She sighs, "I know it sounds crazy. I thought it did too. But I've seen things that don't fit in with the paradigm I had or what I knew about the world. I've met people, like you, who sound like they're babbling and not making sense. Because where I'm from there is no place called Panem, there are no Hunger Games, there's just straightforward war." She pauses, realizing she might need to slow down, but she does have one more thing to add, "And that's not even getting into this place -- where people are from places like neither of our homes."

Kate blinks and surprise blossoms across her face, quickly followed by intentness, eagerness, as she steps forward.

"You do? You remember? Why, why are you here? Is it the same reason as the rest of us?"

He's the only one who has said anything like this, and she can't help herself. Somewhere, there's Ned's voice in her head telling her that you have to be patient to wait for answers, that you give people space to fill up the air, but she ignores it.

She needs to know why.

It's surely not possible. He's willing to believe that the Capitol is lying to them all about many, many things. Even things beyond the supposed glamour of a victor's life. Things beyond the facade he's been made to put up for public consumption ever since Snow started profiteering from his beauty. But that somewhere out there is, what, whole other countries that have no idea where Panem is? That strains the very boundaries of what he thinks he knows.

Riza Hawkeye, though, doesn't sound crazy. She sounds resigned, even when she's telling him he's making no sense. It's all so cool, so certain, and she says it like she really believes it. Except that what she's saying goes against everything every child in Panem is taught. And Finnick is a revolutionary, desperate to avoid the attention insubordination brings.

He wishes he had a trident with him. Not because he wants to attack her, but because there's safety in a weapon. He understands a weapon.

So he doesn't acknowledge most of what she says. He can't voice how very reasonable she's sounding, and even if he could, he certainly can't just take her word for it that everything he's ever known about the world is wrong, no matter how weak his Capitol-inspired echoing of the official history of Panem sounds.

Instead, he latches on to what he can acknowledge, though his voice still sounds a little accusatory, and he's still eying her with the suspicion of someone who's not sure about her sanity. (Only because that's safest. If it's a trick, it's safest to look disbelieving.)

"What do you mean, from places like neither of our homes?"

At that, his confusion is genuine. Panem, after all, is all he's ever known.

Riza doesn't believe that she'll convince Finnick in one day. How could she? However, she's not going to lie and she's not going to hide her information. Based on what he's said, he doesn't trust easy. Riza knows that if she tries to hide anything now and he finds out later...well there goes another potential ally. So she'll tell him the truth now, even if it makes her sound crazy, just so he can't come back later and say she'd never mentioned it. She's always been a direct individual, which isn't to say that she hasn't lied. How would she have survived working for the Furher as his hostage so long otherwise?

So, ultimately, Finnick wasn't wrong in thinking that Riza had her motives for telling him all this.

Unfortunately, they've gotten to the point in the conversation where she isn't quite sure how to explain it. How do you explain that there can be multiple versions of New York City? Or that there is a place called Manhattan? How do you convince someone that magic and monsters exist without evidence? She needed proof, and she didn't have that with her here. "It's difficult to explain more than what I've already said -- I don't have the words for it. But what makes sense in Panem, the experiences you've gone through, to some people here they're going to sound like fiction. Most of the people I've spoken to here are from different parts of the United States. Amestris doesn't exist for them and nor does Panem. They don't have a Furher ruling them and they don't have any Hunger Games going on."

He's not unfamiliar with the idea of an alliance, of course. Allies stick together for as long as they're useful for each other. They don't trade, though, not usually: they pool all their resources within the group. Nothing like this listing of things for trade that the man is talking about.

Sharing with your fellow tributes, after all, is just supporting the opponents who could end up killing you, so it's not the way to stay alive. Not for most tributes, in most situations. But the man sounds so definite, like there's no other way it could be, that Finnick pauses in his protests and, for the moment, decides to go along with the stranger. He must have a reason for what he's doing, and if that's to lure Finnick into a trap, then he'll be on the lookout.

Just maybe, though, someone's trying to help, some sort of unexpected gesture of generosity in a place designed to quash them. So Finnick nods and takes a couple of purposeful steps in the direction the guy is indicating.

"I'd like to see."

But he does plan on staying behind and keeping the man where he can see him.

Cougar never entirely turns his back on this man. He doesn't need to be suspicious in order to be wary given their interaction so far, and Cougar's been trained to be suspicious thanks to his own experiences. "Here," he says, as they approach the Inn and where the weapons are mainly stored. He eyes the boy cautiously, not sure whether he's going to grab for one and make a stand, but better to allow the new ones a chance to find their own food.

He doesn't want to condemn them to starvation, even if they make him wary and ping on his suspicions that something is odd. Something might be a little off, but he'll figure that out. "If you will hunt, be careful of the population," he warns. "Don't want to make anything extinct."

He notices that care that the man takes, though it's not clear whether it's mistrust or simple caution that motivates him to avoid totally turning his back on Finnick. For his part, Finnick is watching his guide and his surroundings, both. He's seen the Inn before: he'd passed it as he crept away from the fountain, had even wound up meeting someone there.

He'd kept away from the building itself, though, and when he's brought inside to where the weapons are, it makes him tense, his back feeling exposed. He's not used to fighting or protecting himself in buildings, where it's so easier for enemies to hide.

Maybe coming in wasn't a good idea.

The man with the bow, though, doesn't make any threats, he just shows the stored weapons. Many of them are broken, and there's nothing that's up to the standards of the weapons the Careers usually manage to get for themselves in the arena.

What the man says, though, isn't something Finnick had been thinking of. Protection had been highest in his mind, but the man's heavily accented voice reminds him not to overhunt the wildlife populations.

Finnick nods.

"Yeah." He knows a little about maintaining populations. "The fishermen always had to think about that."

Once, before the current ways of District Four, fish populations had nearly died out in much of Panem from overuse. They'd been taught that, in school. Taught the importance of maintaining the fisheries. (Not that it always worked out that way. When there are quotas to meet for the Capitol, looking after the fish stocks isn't the first thing on people's minds.)

"People just share these?"

Finnick hasn't reached for one: he knows the way he's being watched, and even if he were to make a lunge for one of those spears, he'd stand no chance of actually being able to complete an attack before the man could shoot him.

Better to leave that for later.

"Yes," is his response about the weapons, but the frown on his face isn't hidden by his hat the way he'd like it to be. He's still not sure how much he agrees with these being available for everyone, because he can't control how much they hunt or what they do to the weapons. Cougar can keep the weapons in absolutely perfect condition as best as he can, but that's as much as he can do. It's like giving up control of his rifle back home and Cougar had never done that in his life, so it's been hard for him to stop being stubborn about it here.

He leans against the table with the bow strapped over his back, relaxed and casual, but if something goes wrong, he'd be alert and on guard as quickly as he could. "You know fish?" he asks, interested now. "Breeding?"

He wants to ask why, how, but he already thinks he knows what the answer will be. That same sort of confusion he's been getting from everyone since he found himself here. The assumption that sharing weapons is a way to stay alive, which never happens in the Games outside of an alliance. It's easy enough, though, to pick up that his companion doesn't much like the idea, despite his apparent earlier defence of it. Finnick doesn't know what to make of that, but in a way, it's one familiar thing: if people are sharing weapons, your enemy could end up with something trained on you that you didn't know they had.

Finnick is considering that, eyes narrowed, when the other man asks a question that makes him stare. Everyone knows Finnick's past: raised by a fishing family, would have been a fisherman like his father and mother and uncle and cousin if he hadn't volunteered for the Games.

"They teach us about fish populations in school in District Four."

Even the Careers.

Everything and everyone in this place is threatening. It's an arena: of course it's a threat. And Finnick should be a threat, even without a weapon. He is a threat, but he knows well enough that the most skilled combatant can be beaten, so he's taking care.

But Finnick knows in himself that he can't attack a kid. Not unless he's attacked first. Maybe not even then. Not now he's already got so much death on his conscience.

Not that he's about to relax, but he's started the conversation now.

"By that measure, I'm new. Just got here." The description Jess gives raises a lot of questions that Finnick isn't quite sure how to even ask: the Games doesn't last five weeks. The Gamemakers would have unleashed some disaster or swarm of mutts to force the tributes to engage.

Finnick's head tilts a little to one side, because there's one more thing Jess says that's completely contrary to the Hunger Games.

"You have enough food here?"

It's repetition, but it's a question he needs to ask.

"I can monitor fowl and rabbit," he says, "but cannot do fish." He looks at the boy in a way that implies that he's meant to reply now in order to speak about what he intends to do to help the population. "Killian, he also knows fish, but do not think he breeds them instead of hunts."

And anything that keeps his people alive is something that Cougar is determined to pursue.

Jess isn't worried; he has the three main advantages, those being knowledge, experience, and weapons. He can do the relaxing for the both of them, at least on the surface.

Standing up to join Finnick on his feet, he quirks an acknowledging smile, not minding that Finnick fails to give an introduction. "I figured. You're still drying from your warm welcome unless you went swimming in your clothes. It's a giveaway. Too bad about the color." He gestures at Finnick's pants, meaning the red. Growing up on the wrong side of the Garda, red's one of those colors he doesn't think looks good on anyone.

"You mean do we have enough to live off of without a handy corner store around to get our groceries? It won't be winning any culinary awards, but we're getting by. Have you already seen the inn? It's the big squat building to the east of the park. It's where I'm taking this. You'll get a hot meal there and all the information we've pulled together on this place so far."

"We were taught to do both."

There's something probing in the way the man looks at him; it's funny, because his accent and appearance are more like Four than any of the other Districts, but he's talking about hunting like it's something he's used to. Openly.

Finnick frowns a little, but he keeps talking.

"We fish for the whole country, so we can't let the fisheries get overfished. We're all Panem has." Once, before the new system that Panem's establishment brought with it, whole fisheries had been destroyed by overuse, or so they say in school.

"Good," Cougar says with a nod of his head, seeing as that means that he will be able to offer help in the fishing. "We need to monitor the populations," he says heavily, because if they're going to survive, they need to make sure they have a steady source of food. "Then you can help," is what he says.

"And in turn, then you can have food from the hunt." Because while Cougar might have high expectations, he also thinks that he ought to be fair and trade.

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ψ It's hard to have faith when faith is a crime

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