Ten Forward -- OTA

[fishermansweater]

Plenty of people have, by now, seen Finnick tying knots with either the rope Katniss and Guinan gave him or the hair ribbon that was a gift from Sinthia. On his bad days, that's still what he does: find a quiet spot somewhere and sit and tie knots, his whole being focused on the length of rope in his hand.

Today, he's also tying knots, but this isn't like that. Today, Finnick's sitting at a table that's scattered with gleaming golden things. One of them looks like it might be some sort of circlet or headpiece made of complicated knots. Others look like little figures: a turtle, a dragonfly, lots of different little flowers.

He's got a chair pulled out next to him, a skein of golden thread wound around its back, and he's cut a length off it that he's concentrating on weaving in and out and around. When it's done, though, he still doesn't look entirely happy with it, and he gets up to go to the replicator for a cup of coffee.

When he sits back down, he doesn't pick up his knots again, immediately, but studies them for a while. It's possible he could use some distraction. Or some advice.

Comments

[fishermansweater]

He could hardly have blamed her for thinking he'd had something to do with her finding herself here. He'd thought something similar when he'd first arrived, and had been prepared to blame what had happened on Doctor Bashir, not to mention convinced that the doctor himself was likely some sort of agent of the Capitol.

Although he could see the poise and style that was such a part of the way Inara held herself, and could guess that it was as much the result of effort as innate grace, there was still something almost comforting in its familiarity.

Not that anything about the Capitol was ever particularly comforting, but it looked good on Inara.

Finnick gave a self-deprecating little smile and laughed, looking down at the dragonfly.

"Mostly, they're for something for me to do with my hands. I grew up in a fishing village, I learned to be good with rope."

He shrugged, something impish flashing through his smile for a moment. "But they look pretty, too."

[companioning]

Being a Companion had afforded Inara a lot of good life skills. She was able to get along with many different types of people, able to read a situation fairly well as well as the people involved in the situation. She'd been taught grace, good manners... And how to be a good actress.

Granted, that last skill hadn't done her all the well when she'd first arrived on the ship, but she was now better able to control her facial expressions and could act as though she wasn't as bothered by her situation if she so wished.

But as she watched Finnick, she decided that he looked as though he might be one of the few who might be able to see through all of that. There was something about him that reminded her of Sihnon and of some of the men who'd been at the training house when she'd last been there.

"Truly? Well seeing your skill with rope, I suppose that only makes sense." She flashed a smile back at him.

"I spent the later part of my childhood in a mountainy part of the planet, though I did enjoy the visits that we'd make to the shore a couple of times a year."

[fishermansweater]

"Do you want to sit?"

There were spare seats at his table, and for all the suspicion of charm and beauty he'd learned in so many years in the Capitol, it was because he knew them for what they were: no indication of the person's true value, but things he knew how to respond to.

There was a strange sort of comfort in that. Not in any reminder of the Capitol, but in the reflection of himself. He'd been naturally charming and graceful, and those skills had been refined by the Academy, by Mags as his mentor, by his need to play the role Snow set him.

"I was the other way around. Lived on the coast, went to the mountains a couple of times a year."