did you say your prayers?

[attitude]

You can live through anything, now. You'll survive if the world is turned inside out. And it will be. Sooner than you think.

There are days when sleep seems to be a shroud that slips over Faye in waves, occasionally clinging to her shoulders, eyelids heavy as lashes touch her cheeks. It's easy to sleep here. It grow still more so by the day, only the occasional interruption keeping her up at night, but her life has been a transient one ever since she woke up in that chamber, and so she's learned to cope with that long ago. People might disappear. People will, if patterns persist. But she'll survive through anything.

She always has.

A touch, cold like ice, brushes against her arm. Another, against her calf. A hand brushes away the sensation with an irritated flick, only to feel something hard knocking against her knuckles. Brow furrowing, Faye's hand turns, pressing harder still against a smooth, rounded surface, until glass jars against glass and her eyes fly open. Revealing butterflies in the sky.

The most beautiful butterflies in the world.

Her breath starts to shake as she glances down, gold darting between pearls of cerulean blue, marble after marble closing around her from all sides, scattered across the sandy beach, a sharp pain under her hand as she shoves herself to her knees.

"No. I need a knife, I need—"

Hands desperately grabbing through air, she tries to push them away, every one of the butterflies, until a face suddenly appears only yards away.

"Get back."


[ There are a thousand blue marbles scattered across the beach, most of them pooled by Faye's side, her 2012 NDPD. The butterflies mentioned in the narrative are not real; they're the result of nanomachines in her bloodstream. Faye thinks that the marbles are biological weapons as she once encountered in her world, but they're actually harmless, although she's very obviously panicked as a result. ]

Comments

[attitude]

On the bright side, his eager nature is better than just about anything else at calming Faye down, green eyes carefully rising to meet his. He seems so young, somehow. He's probably not any younger than she should be by now. He's probably not seen any fewer years, and yet... there's something that he still has, something that she lost long ago. If there's anything that she feels that those fifty lost years have taken from her, in spite of being asleep for every one, it's youth. Hope. Optimism. It slips through one's fingers quick, when the world around them is suddenly changed, and not necessarily for the better.

She feels calmed, and she can't explain why.

"You could talk to the ITF. Island Task Force," she replies, leaning forward until her chin rests on the back of her hand. "Bucky Barnes, Kara Thrace. They might be your best first bet. But when I say capable, I mean of protecting yourself. There are people who died down there. Thankfully, none of our own, but we had plenty of injuries. The people down there were mad. Crazed. Did all types of things to their body for a bit of extra strength, and it backfired. So you need to know how to protect your own life."

[victorofthe65th]

If there's one thing Finnick is absolutely sure of it's his ability to protect himself. And if that's all that's required, he should have no difficulties.

His interest doesn't waver any as she continues, only growing more and more curious. His idea of the place shifts a little, morphing into an underground city of mutts. Did the Capitol infiltrate the district after all, did they change its people for their own means. It's possible, of course. Highly possible. And terrifying. "Are there people still down there? Are they alive?"

[attitude]

"One guy lives down there, if rumors serve," Faye replies hesitantly, her hand running in repeated motions against her forehead, sweeping up to her hairline. With each brush, she feels herself marginally calmed, and all that's left is to focus on the young man in front of her. She wonders if it's right, telling him so much. (She's also sure that there's no way to truly hide the truth, in a place like this.)

And she wonders if that makes her partially responsible for him, now.

"Cohen, I think. Something Cohen," Faye goes on, waving dismissively with her hand. "But almost everyone who started off down there... didn't make it. There are audio tapes, if that interests you. Diaries that people kept down there for everything that happened."

Her gaze darkened. "Or, seeing as how I was down there for much of it, maybe I should tell you more to warn you away. It's not a city full of fun and games."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick is interested. In the diaries, especially. Even if they're dead or mutated, just knowing that they were once people from Panem, his people, he might actually be able to make some sense of this place. For some reason, time travel seems easier to comprehend than mysterious abduction and displacement. And certainly preferable to some Capitol-orchestrated manipulation technique.

"I wouldn't go down there to play," he says, though he doesn't really owe the girl any explanations. His brows furrow then, head tilting. "Down there for what? Was there a fight?"

[attitude]

Shaking her head, Faye's lips press shut as she leans forward to draw in the sand, two sloping pyramids on top of waves to represent the islands. She follows thereafter with a pair of lines leading down to a series of buildings, skyscrapers that may look none too impressive next to the mountain in the center of the island, but are still gathered in an intricate network.

"So, this is my understanding of island history. Remember that I've only been here for about a year," she warns, glancing up with an arch of her brow. "In the beginning, there was only one island. We call it Tabula Rasa. It's the large one here—" Faye points to the drawing with her finger, before making a face and trying to brush off as much sand as possible. "—and there was no underground city, no second island at the time. A couple of years later, the second island showed up. It's smaller, and there are a bunch of abandoned buildings there, but we've got no idea who or what occupied them before we came across the island. And then, half a year ago, one of our task force officers found this city."

She taps the series of buildings.

"They call it Rapture. Chances are, it hasn't been here all these six years either— but no one can really say. When we found it, there were people down there. Some of them believed that they'd lived down below for years, all coming from the same world, background, and time. We call them the natives, and all of them ended up dying. Except Cohen."

Leaning forward, she rests her chin in the palm of her hand, waiting for any questions he may have still.

[victorofthe65th]

"And now they're what? All dead?" All except this Cohen, she'd said. It doesn't strike him as a particularly unusual name, but Finnick can't say he knows a Cohen personally. Is it possible this man is the last remaining descendant of his people?

And what about this other island? This is the first Finnick's heard of it, though he's only been here a week. There could be clues there, too.

Or there could be nothing.

"What should I take with me?" Finnick says, decision made. "Do I need firearms?" He doesn't have any of course, but he's willing to bet Katniss knows where to find some. Or Jason even.

[attitude]

Were she in her normal outfit and not sunbathing, all Faye would have needed to do was reach behind her back for the Glock tucked away by the base of her spine. Unfortunately, having come out in a tube top and shorts to cut down on unwanted tan lines, Faye has to pick herself up and over a few steps, to where her belongings and now slightly askew in the sand. Unfolding a bright pink beach towel, she lifts her Glock 30, twirling it around her index finger before tossing it over, safety on.

"I got into a few close shaves when the activity was at its worst down there," Faye says, "but it should be more than enough now, unless you find something better. Whatever you protect yourself the most well with. Not everyone goes down with guns; not everyone needs to."

Arching a brow, she crosses her arms over her chest. "Though honestly, an extra pair of eyes is better than anything else. Plus, it'd spare you the worry of having me to answer to if you lost that Glock in any way."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick catches the gun against his chest, heavy and cool and against his hand. While he's had some experience with guns, he isn't as familiar with them as he is spears and, thanks to Katniss's training, arrows. Guns are extremely rare in the arena to the extent that he personally hadn't come across any during his two runs.

He studies the piece for a moment, turning it this way and that before glancing up at her again. "You're just going to let me use your gun?" he asks, slightly bewildered. He isn't worried about finding someone to go down with him. If he can't convince Jason, he'll go down himself despite this woman's warning. If Finnick can survive two rounds in the Games, he can survive some abandoned, underground city.

[attitude]

"You've just helped me come to the realization that the bioterrorist weapons the island brought to me just now are inert. Or defunct. Whatever," Faye shakes her head, briefly rolling her eyes; there isn't really a way to explain her reasons for trusting more, and perhaps she shouldn't try. Perhaps she's making a mistake. But she knows where she can get more weapons if she needs, and the only thing that separates wheat from chaff is the sentimental value of the Glock.

And Faye would rather not find herself as caught up over such details, she thinks to herself. The past doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all.

"Consider it a loan. It's not my only gun, anyway."

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick's fairly certain she would have figured it out by herself given enough time, but he keeps that to himself. It's not worth arguing.

But he does slip off the bracelet on his wrist, the one Haymitch gave him prior to entering the Game, decorated in flames.

"Collateral," he says, handing it over. His lips slip into a smile then as he adds, "And name's Finnick, by the way."

[attitude]

Her brows pull together for an instant in confusion as she stares at the bracelet suddenly deposited in her hand. Pulling it closer to her eyes, she can see the small flames painted over the jewelry, nothing too extraordinary, and yet beautiful in its simplicity. To maintain her image, she does still raise a brow in his direction, something like disbelief. A gun for a bracelet, really.

But she knows how much the most seemingly inconsequential of items can mean to a person.

And so she slips the bracelet on for safe-keeping.

"Faye," she replies. "Faye Valentine. Pleasure to meet you, Finnick."

[victorofthe65th]

The bracelet really doesn't mean much to Finnick, just a token from Haymitch meant to grab Katniss's attention in the arena. It'd seemingly worked so, by that, Finnick supposes it does have some kind of value.

Compared to a firearm, it's nothing. But Finnick isn't about to trade in his trident, and he does have every intention of bringing it back.

His smile brightens when she accepts it, mostly in relief. Says, "I'll take good care of it, I promise."

He doesn't mention that he should probably practice a little first. That, she doesn't need to know.

[attitude]

There's something about that smile, disarming and all too charming, that digs under Faye's skin. Reminds her of Spike, even, the easy way he'd slide in and out of a person's life like so much water, everything about his life holding such a theme, almost like it was some type of life philosophy. Faye never managed quite the same. The air to his water, she showed too much of her emotion in the speed with which she whipped around, or ran away.

"You'd better," she says, even as her expression holds loose and casual. "It's one of the few things from home I actually have somewhat of an attachment to. It's a good gun."