If it's wrong, it's something that Finnick understands. Finnick is a victor, but he was a Career first, so the enthusiasm of the response to the word trident just makes him smile, if only for a flash. By the time Finnick was sixteen, he was already famous, already supposedly set for life on the back of the things he could do when you put a trident in his hands. But he'd never liked teaching the Careers. They wanted to become like him, victors, and he couldn't encourage them in that, couldn't keep feeding them the lies about how good everything would be when they'd won.
Nida, though, talks about fighting monsters, and Finnick's long ago learned that he can't assume that people here are from places anywhere comparable to Panem.
"Incapacitate them first."
It's the brutal fighting style he'd used to win his way to glory in the Games. He can throw a trident or spear with strength, rapidity, accuracy, but where he'd really excelled was in closer quarters, when he could use the trident not only as a thrusting weapon, but a staff, too. And in the Games, he'd used nets, a mark of his childhood as a fisherman's son, so that when his opponents were trying to get out, he could close on the kill.
Not that he's proud of it.
He prefers what he does here, fishing and hunting to survive instead of murdering.
"It helps to have grown up using them," he says, offering a little more information as Nida actually lets go of his hand. "I know a lot of fighting styles, but the trident came more naturally to me because I was used to it. I used to help my father out on his fishing boat before I started fighting."
He considers again, piercingly green eyes scrutinizing the younger man. Nida's barely more than a kid himself, in that same age group as the younger victors like Johanna. So he relents.
tw: child murder
Nida, though, talks about fighting monsters, and Finnick's long ago learned that he can't assume that people here are from places anywhere comparable to Panem.
"Incapacitate them first."
It's the brutal fighting style he'd used to win his way to glory in the Games. He can throw a trident or spear with strength, rapidity, accuracy, but where he'd really excelled was in closer quarters, when he could use the trident not only as a thrusting weapon, but a staff, too. And in the Games, he'd used nets, a mark of his childhood as a fisherman's son, so that when his opponents were trying to get out, he could close on the kill.
Not that he's proud of it.
He prefers what he does here, fishing and hunting to survive instead of murdering.
"It helps to have grown up using them," he says, offering a little more information as Nida actually lets go of his hand. "I know a lot of fighting styles, but the trident came more naturally to me because I was used to it. I used to help my father out on his fishing boat before I started fighting."
He considers again, piercingly green eyes scrutinizing the younger man. Nida's barely more than a kid himself, in that same age group as the younger victors like Johanna. So he relents.
"I could probably show you a few things."