Finnick Odair | Victor of the 65th Hunger Games (
fishermansweater) wrote in
sixthiterationlogs2017-08-02 02:01 am
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ψ I knew you were trouble when you walked in | OPEN
WHO: Finnick Odair + his peacock
WHERE: The 6I park
WHEN: August 3
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: Baby peacock being ridiculous. Probably mentions of mental health and anxiety later on.
he's a peacock, a total preener --> fountain park
There's been an escape.
There'd been another aftershock, and after he'd calmed Annie down, Finnick had gone outside to check on the birds, only to find another hole in the fence. He'd thought he'd patched it up before he'd gone back to Annie, but he's come out again to find that Star, the oldest of the peacocks, is on the other side of the fence, and making his determined way down the path towards the village.
Finnick curses and turns, rapidly, to pull open the door of the house and shout in to Annie.
"Star's gotten out, can you check the fence?"
He doesn't wait for an answer, only hopes she's heard him before he's off down the road after the blue and brown bird. Hearing Finnick behind him prompts the bird to take off, skimming low over the bushes at the side of the road and leaving Finnick to chase after him.
They're halfway to the village by the time Star lands again, and the bird doesn't seem inclined to let Finnick catch up. Every time he gets close enough to reach out to catch the bird, Star flutters away out of reach and continues on down the path. They've made it all the way to the park before Star finally stops trying to actually run away and starts contentedly pecking at the grass, looking for something to eat. Finnick gives up the pursuit, too, and sits down on the edge of the fountain.
Perhaps he should consider trying to make some sort of leash or harness for the bird so he can't get away. He always carries some of the nylon cable he'd acquired around with him, so he'd be able to, but he's not sure about whether it's even possible to leash a bird. The propaganda films at home about agriculture in District 10 had never said much about poultry.
While Finnick watches, Star stares at the fountain, then turns around, slowly, holding out its wings, tail held straight up in the air. His tail is quivering, displaying the stubs of feathers that haven't yet grown in.
"You've got a while before you'll make it in the Capitol," Finnick says, eyeing the bird.
WHERE: The 6I park
WHEN: August 3
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: Baby peacock being ridiculous. Probably mentions of mental health and anxiety later on.
he's a peacock, a total preener --> fountain park
There's been an escape.
There'd been another aftershock, and after he'd calmed Annie down, Finnick had gone outside to check on the birds, only to find another hole in the fence. He'd thought he'd patched it up before he'd gone back to Annie, but he's come out again to find that Star, the oldest of the peacocks, is on the other side of the fence, and making his determined way down the path towards the village.
Finnick curses and turns, rapidly, to pull open the door of the house and shout in to Annie.
"Star's gotten out, can you check the fence?"
He doesn't wait for an answer, only hopes she's heard him before he's off down the road after the blue and brown bird. Hearing Finnick behind him prompts the bird to take off, skimming low over the bushes at the side of the road and leaving Finnick to chase after him.
They're halfway to the village by the time Star lands again, and the bird doesn't seem inclined to let Finnick catch up. Every time he gets close enough to reach out to catch the bird, Star flutters away out of reach and continues on down the path. They've made it all the way to the park before Star finally stops trying to actually run away and starts contentedly pecking at the grass, looking for something to eat. Finnick gives up the pursuit, too, and sits down on the edge of the fountain.
Perhaps he should consider trying to make some sort of leash or harness for the bird so he can't get away. He always carries some of the nylon cable he'd acquired around with him, so he'd be able to, but he's not sure about whether it's even possible to leash a bird. The propaganda films at home about agriculture in District 10 had never said much about poultry.
While Finnick watches, Star stares at the fountain, then turns around, slowly, holding out its wings, tail held straight up in the air. His tail is quivering, displaying the stubs of feathers that haven't yet grown in.
"You've got a while before you'll make it in the Capitol," Finnick says, eyeing the bird.
no subject
Aurora is thankfully absent, loaned--with a side of foisted--onto Ravi for the day, but Hoshi has his usual perch on Kira's shoulder, calling out to the birds in the trees and surveying his kingdom as he's carried through it. "Sorry," Kira tells the meager display, "I'm a little too old for you, and taken."
At his ear, Hoshi ruffles out and settles his dark wings, fluffing out the feathers of his neck. "Unless that's for him," he adds, steadying the bird with one hand lifting to its side, holding it in place when he leans to find Finnick behind the quivering feathers. "When did the peacocks arrive?"
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Or maybe it really was for Kira, or the bird on Kira's shoulder. Not that it particularly matters, when Star is still little more than a baby, though he's now at least grown some of the distinctive blue of his species as well as the brown fluff he'd had when he was younger.
Finnick's attention goes to the other bird for a moment; he's not used to seeing people carrying around birds on their shoulders like that, not even in the Capitol. Domestic birds are rare in Panem, rare and valuable, like they are here, but less likely to be gifted by the munificence of some unknown manipulator of all their lives.
"Back in winter, must be six months ago now," he says, after a few moments' consideration of the question. "He showed up in a box with some goslings."
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He doesn't know enough about peacocks to know the point, but it's not like Hoshi is putting extra food on his table. Hoshi does very little at all but chase whatever glinting object has caught his eye.
For now he's content to perch on Kira, as Kira perches on the edge of the fountain, tilting his head this way and that in examination of another bird. His feathers have all come in, downy and deep black, but he can do little more than glide down to the ground if Kira leaves him on a low enough surface. "This one," he says, indicating Hoshi with a jerk of his thumb, "he fell out of his nest during the hail storm, broke a wing."
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"He's just as loud," Finnick agrees, his expression wry. "Think they've got worse tempers, though." It's not offered as a criticism of the birds: after all, having them as guards has been part of what's lent Finnick and Annie a little sense of security in their home in this place.
Finnick shakes his head. "There's a few of them, the others showed up with some more geese in another box later on."
He's still trying to make sense of the gifts, how they appear and what they might mean, but there'd seemed little point to the staggered and split way that the flock of birds had arrived, unless it's encouragement for him and Annie to keep working together, which they hardly need.
Finnick is jaded enough, though, that the thought that in a situation like this place someone would take the time to care for an injured wild animal is unexpected. Not unwelcome, but unexpected, and a little curious. Finnick doesn't bother keeping the interest out of his expression as he admires the dark feathers of Kira's bird.
"Looks like he's doing well," Finnick says, as Star, with a final rustle of his feathers, settles out of his display and struts over towards the fountain looking for a drink. "Did you teach him to sit on your shoulder, or was it his idea?"
He knows nothing about training animals and almost nothing about keeping them (fish a notable exception) other than what he and Annie have taught themselves since they got their birds.
no subject
It's weird enough, really, for Nerys to be shaken out of the reverie of fear and sadness that's descended on her since Veronica disappeared. It's an anxiety that hasn't been ameliorated by the seismic events that have been shaking the village and environs, including one earlier today.
She can't help but stare at Finnick, who's talking to the animal, and give him a very skeptical look. "The Capitol?"
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Someone else is here, though, he realizes after he's spoken. Kira Nerys, who he'll always remember for the coffee they'd been drinking when they first met, and for the way she'd spoken about her world. He's long made it his business to remember things people tell him, and her story had been the sort he remembers.
"The city that rules over Panem, where I'm from. They're fond of showy displays." He says it a little flatly, careful not to show the bitterness that talking about showiness and the Capitol stirs in him bite too hard. If Star was putting on a show, he could as well have learned it from Finnick as his own bird instincts.
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She knows what it's like to have everything you can't have shoved in your face...but she can't fathom how it must be to have a giant song-and-dance production made out of it all. Finnick would be more than allowed some bitterness, there, in her mind.
"So this bird is going to be...uh...a bit of a spectacle, once he's grown up?" she asks. "Forgive me, I've never seen one before, but he's already pretty shiny. It's hard to picture more..." She gestures vaguely in big circles, to indicate 'floof' or perhaps pomp.
If so, maybe that's why Finnick's been made this animal's caretaker. Some salt in the wound.
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"They're called peacocks. When he gets older those tail feathers are going to be a lot longer and just as shiny as the rest of him. So they stick up when he does that dance, kind of like this." He makes a gesture of his own, crossing his thumbs and flaring out his fingers to the sides to make the shape of a fan.
"Peacocks are very popular in the Capitol. Exactly their kind of extravagance."
He doesn't show any apparent rancor against the bird because of it, though: the sarcasm is aimed purely at the Capitol, and he smiles when Star turns back around towards him, still flaring his feathers.
"I've seen it before, show Nerys."
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"Huh. So this is just practice for the big show later on, I get it," she says, and sits carefully on the edge of the fountain, making sure to give Finnick and the bird enough personal space. Not that the peacock really gives much of a damn about that. "Still, happy to watch the rehearsal--come on, show me what you've got."
This last is directed at the bird.
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Finnick shifts in his spot a little, leaning to one side and resting his hand on the side of the fountain. He doesn't know how -- if it's even possible -- to divert the bird's attention to Nerys, since Star can't actually understand words, but maybe if she's the one talking, and if she's sitting straighter and nearer, the bird will get the message.
It seems to work. Nerys' voice draws Star's attention, and the bird slowly moves towards her, tiny tail raised as high as it can go, quivering like a dancer's fan.
Finnick can't help a pleased laugh.
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She's tickled, though, and keeps laughing, shaking her head.
"I don't know if I'm the kind of female he's looking for," she points out. "I bet they think we're pretty strange-looking, in all honesty. From what I know of sentients who're avian-descended, they tend to be unimpressed by our lack of wingspan."
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"He thinks Annie and I are his parents, not sure what he thinks people are."
But there's something else in what she says that it takes Finnick a few moments to process: avian-descended. His expression had been amused, and it freezes for a moment, then there's a faint frown that speeds across his face before it disappears.
"Avian-descended?" he asks.
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"Probably other birds," she says, "strange, flightless, and decidedly lacking in plumage."
Because of her issues in getting a steady perch, Nerys doesn't quite notice the expression change on Finnick's face, save out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't consciously process it, anyway. "There are plenty of different sentient species in the galaxy," she explains somewhat blithely. "Human ancestry is from primate type animals, but dominant intelligences on other worlds often stem from a variety of different taxonomic orders, and sometimes not even animal life, though we don't run into them much."
This is all elementary science for Nerys, after all.
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His frown deepens a little, and he rubs the fingers of one hand across the ledge next to him, feeling the coolness of the surface, the roughness of exposed stone.
"You mean there are people out there who come from birds?"
There'd been some biology in his school studies, but again, only a rudimentary glance at what was necessary as background for the study of marine ecosystems, fish farming, and maximizing fishing yields. Maybe there'd been more, after he'd left, but he'd gone to the Academy, and then he'd won the Games, and from fourteen, he'd never had to go to school again. They hadn't studied where people came from, and he only has a very vague idea of what a primate is -- something a bit like a monkey, he thinks.
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She watches her new bird friend do a bit of a strut across the grass in front of the fountain. His gait is not entirely smooth yet, a little gawky, like he doesn't know where exactly his limbs are at any given time; basically, a bird teenager.
"There are people out there," she echoes, "who come from pretty much everything organic you can picture, and some inorganic structures, too. Our frames of reference are usually pretty different though, it can be kind of hard to bridge the cultural gaps the further you get away from beings with four limbs and a spine." There's probably some scientific term for that, but Nerys can't think of it off the top of her head. "You end up looking at the universe pretty differently."
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She is not normally one for animals. Stella never had pets as a girl — her grandparents had a pair of English sheepdogs, but by the age she'd been living with them after her father's death, she'd been off at boarding school half the year. As a university student she'd been too busy with her degrees to care for a pet, and certainly after she'd started her career, all her time had been slowly consumed by police work. She'd decided against it for one of the same reasons she'd never had children: it's hardly right or fair to have a pet when you're barely home to care for it.
Still, she supposes it is... cute, in that awkward half-grown bird way. Stella's mouth twitches for a second, a shadow of a smile, and then she looks up to see the man sitting on the fountain rim and the smile falls right off, leaving her expression still and reserved. Not cold, not the way she's sometimes looked at Finnick, but carefully held back.
With their last conversation, she isn't entirely sure what to make of him anymore. Not that she doesn't still feel he's a bit of an arrogant dick, but his story about his world had left her feeling shaken and a little raw afterwards, and in light of that, perhaps he deserves her reconsideration. He's lucky, really. Stella doesn't often give second chances.
She doesn't sit next to him, stops a few feet from the fountain instead. "He'll be pretty when he's grown," she comments. "Yours or Annie's?"
For some reason she doesn't think of him as the type to keep animals, either, but he might surprise her.
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He has no particular reason to care about Stella's feelings towards him; he knows how to get by (and get what he wants) without making friends. Still, to someone else the way her smile drops away so quickly could be insulting, if he didn't have reasons of his own to be wary around her, around anyone with that air of quiet authority she has. Not that she's likely to be much of a physical threat, not with her arm in a sling, but that's not the point. He's not sure what is, here and now, but he does know his sense of unease around authority.
But Stella's been kind to Annie, recently, so he smiles in response to her question.
"Technically Annie's, but he seems to like me. All the geese adopted her, I guess he picked me."
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Then, she laughs. Quietly, trying not to offend the creature, for she knows that they can pick up on mockery more than people might think, but it's a soft, chuckling laugh that rings out.
"Oh, bravo, young sir," Kate says, dimpling at the bird. "You'll do us all proud one day."
She knows Finnick is there, which is why she isn't trying to shoo the bird back to its owners, but the moment, her attention is caught on the peacock.
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"Think you've got a fan," he tells the peacock, laughing, like Kelly does, with a gently amused sort of chuckle rather than any genuine mockery.
He is, after all, aware that part of the reason he's fond of the bird is a sense of affinity.
Finnick slides mostly off the edge of the fountain, so that he's leaning rather than sitting, and gestures to the bird.
"Kate Kelly, this is Starboard. We call him Star. Star, this is Kelly. Remember her when you're famous."
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"A pleasure to meet you, Master Star," Kate says. Then pauses, her hazel eyes glancing over at Odair's face. He hadn't liked being called 'Mister', but with a trace of distaste rather than most people's uncomfortable awkwardness. She isn't sure if her teasing title of his bird is all right.
"Does he do this often?"
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There's a vague question in the way she looks at him, and Finnick's not sure why, but he grins at her, in response to the way she's played along with his joke of introducing her to the bird.
"He's been doing it a bit lately. Think he's getting ready for when the peahens are older. Not that he's got any competition."
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It's all well enough. And it's good to see the man grin like this, all happy and pleased and enjoying life.
"He might not have any competition, but no girl likes being taken for granted. A bit of courtin' sets all at ease," Kate quips back with an answering smile. "If he shows some effort, I'm sure the ladies will be charmed rather than resigned to his suit."
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And there's a bird there, too, ruining her day, along with that very shiny peacock.
"You know," she drawls, sitting up and adjusting the strap of her bra as she points her toe in that direction, wiggling it at the bird presenting itself, "if it's trying to woo me over, it's definitely got to work on that."
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Rich of him to say, of course, and to anyone else it would be pointedly cruel, but that's the point. They can heckle each other with that sort of barb, and not take them to heart, though they're sharp enough to wound someone who hasn't been through the Games' harsh initiation. Besides, they know each other's stories, in all the sordid details of who and what because there's no way not to see the surface of it all, in Panem, and they know each other well enough to know what's below that superficiality.
Just like they know each other well enough that Finnick barely even notices how little Johanna's wearing.
"Anyway," he says, "the peahens would be disappointed."
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She wouldn't have lost her family, then.
"Why?" she replies, faux-breathy. "You don't think I'd be a good stepmother? Finnick, it's like you're just trying to insult me," she says with a smirk rather than a pout, stretching back again. "Are you really going to run around all day and work? The weather's great, you should relax!"
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Social creatures like her don't do well feeling isolated, and while she's branched out for friendships as much as possible, it's never the same as having a friendly face from home around.
She's pulling her hair back, trying to tie it into a high pony-tail with a strip of cloth. She's getting ready to do a bit of a run, wearing her usual sports bra and yoga shorts, still finding it too uncomfortably warm to wear anything more. She stops short when she sees the baby peacock near the fountain, almost not recognizing it at first. She's hardly ever even seen a peacock, let alone a baby one.
"Look at you," she says to it, dropping her hands from her hair. It spills back over her shoulders, framing her face once more. She crouches several feet back from it, getting on its level. "Are you showing off?"
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The woman notices Star first, which is probably fair given that the little bird is making such a spectacle of himself, and Finnick is amused to see her crouch down and address Star from nearly his own level. It's the sort of vaguely affectionate thing Finnick himself sometimes does with the flock, so he smiles as he calls out -- loud enough to carry but not enough to startle the bird he'd spent so long chasing already -- to her.
"He's definitely showing off. Good at it, isn't he?"
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Jace is the cockiest person she knows. Worse than her, and probably worse than this guy, too.
"He's very good at it." She stands up again, giving the bird a wide birth as she moves towards the fountain. She doesn't want to startle it, and it probably helps that she moves almost silently, light on her feet and graceful to boot. She pauses at the edge of the fountain, and she gives the good-looking man his space, too, just out of politeness. "I never thought I'd meet someone who liked showing off more than my brother does."
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"He's been practicing," Finnick says, looking over at her where she's sitting. He'd noticed how she moved, with a self-possession that speaks of comfort in her own body, from confidence or from training. He'd guess both: he's known enough Careers to be able to recognize the combination when he sees it. "Think he's going to impress all the girls when he's older."
He smiles.
"I don't think we've properly met. Finnick Odair."
He is, finally, getting used to the idea that he has to introduce himself here. After all, in Panem, everyone knows his name.