ten_fwd | (no subject)

He hasn't, it's true, had a lot of energy on a lot of the days he's been here.

Finnick tends to waver between the extremes: some days, he's too listless to leave his house unless Annie drags him, and some days he has the sort of restless energy that drives him to run and run along the breach and then swim for hours, to take a trident and drill himself over and over like he used to when he was in training.

Ever since the Quarter Quell was announced, he and Annie have been training together harder than ever, though neither of them ever really stopped training, not even after they'd won. Not until they wound up here; so much of his time here, Finnick's been too caught up in Annie to want to even be out of her sight.

(He'll never forget what it felt like to think she was dead.)

Now, though, he is restless, and his explorations of the ship have brought him as far as the gymnasium, so he's started to make regular visits there. It helps to keep his mind clear and his body focused. Panem or not, this place is still somewhere he needs to be alert. He can't fall into that haze again. Not with Annie and Katniss here to protect. Not with Prim and Peeta, Peeta for whom he'd risked his life over and over in the arena.

So, dressed in an athletic shirt that hugs his upper body and leaves his finely sculpted arms bare and a pair of comfortably loose pants, he heads for the gym and into the martial arts area. He starts at a punching bag, and it begins as simple boxing. His form's good; boxing is taught around Panem, even in those districts that don't train their tributes. But as he warms to the fighting, it becomes less simple, less orthodox, less like a practised art than a survival skill. He's not just punching now; he's kicking, high and low, striking with different blows, and if there's a pattern to the drill, it's not easily recognizable.

What is recognizable, however, is how many of the blows he lands would incapacitate or kill a human opponent, if delivered with the right speed and power.

That becomes even more obvious when he moves on from the kickboxing to collect a staff and start running through moves on one of the mats, moves that sometimes look like he's practicing for a sword, and sometimes for a spear. It's with the staff in his hands that he looks truly dangerous, moving with a natural grace that's deceptively easy to watch.

Finnick learned to fight to kill.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everything looks normal from the inside. That's part of the problem. Marika, for example, thinks it's completely normal to have to have a palm and iris scan to unlock the door to the house and that everyone's exterior doors should slow down attacks from anything small than a full military assult long enough to get out the anti-armor weapons. Marika's Mom stopped going on raids to raise her, but she didn't really let go of having the options that being a pirate brings.

"We still learn that too, but the constellations change when you get to a different world. I could show you a couple I know later, if you're interested. The stars are the same, at least, even if the stories are different."

Marika might not have Ai Hoshimiya's memory and obsession with local constellations but she knows the one for Sea of the Morningstar at least.

"My name's Marika Kato. I'm from Sea of the Morningstar, but they call the planet Tau Ceti III here."

"I'd like that," Finnick says, and light breaks through the cool of his tone and expression for a moment, letting a grin flash across his features. It makes him look younger, boyish, closer to a teen than the mid-twenties man he really is. "And I could show you some I know, if they're different."

He'd been good at navigating by the stars, even if he hadn't delved further into astronomy, like Annie had. He knows the skies and their patterns, and how they move, because out at sea overnight, or watching traps on the beach, those are important things to know, and he'd been raised as a fisherman before a Career.

"Finnick Odair. I'm from Panem. Earth," he corrects, after a moment. "Or, a version of it."