redshiftlogs | ψ where do the codfish go?

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ψ where do the codfish go? | OTA

Who: Finnick Odair + OTA
What: Spooky-animal-Fish related adventures
When: Early August
Where: Agricultural levels and bottom level
Warnings: No warnings so far, but Finnick has PTSD and depression so things might come up in threads

nighttime - agricultural levels

Being from Panem, Finnick's used to power outages.

He's not used to power outages that confine where he can go and what he can do, though, so being confined until the generators are working tested his patience. He's been confined to District Thirteen for weeks, now he's confined to the parts of Anchor that have power. Fortunately, enough power comes back that they can go more places, and return to what had been his top priority before the power went out: trying to gather enough supplies to properly investigate the lake. The vid he'd been shown when he arrived suggested there used to be fish there. Are there still fish there?

Armed with a trident, rifle, and knife, he and Annie still need to create some fishing tools, and then they need to find some bait. That's why one night, after the dust storm has stopped, Finnick and Annie are up on the agricultural levels hunting for insects. They've been up here during the day enough time to gather some leaves and grasses to weave a couple of containers to keep their bait in, but tonight's goal is catching it.

Finnick's prowling a perimeter watching -- mostly listening -- for the sound of the mutts that haunt this place. The light on his rifle bobs off in the distance while Annie sits by a small fire catching the insects lured to the warmth and light.

When he sees the lights off in the distance, at first he's not sure he even sees them. Then he's uneasy, remembering the traps in the arena that had each come at their specific time and place, and each been a special sort of danger or torment to the tributes. He knows better than to go chasing something like that in the dark.

He swings the rifle around in a slow arc, letting the light fall on the trees in front of him, but he starts and lets out a yell when he sees the glowing deer step into the light.

daytime - the park

Fish in the lake have proved elusive when Finnick's gone looking before, but today, he's prepared. He has a woven container with a variety of insects, along with some lures fashioned from grasses and twigs from the Agricultural levels. He and Annie have also sharpened sticks into something like a fishing spear -- not as good as anything they'd have had access to back in District Four, but they're victors. They both know how to improvise.

The process of locating fish in an unfamiliar body of water can take some time. It involves working out where the fish will be, watching the water for signs of them, and sometimes requires offering them the incentive of bait to come to the surface.

That's why Finnick, stripped to his underwear, is in thigh-deep water in the lake, staring intently at the water. There's a little lure made of grasses tied and twisted into the shape of a large insect bobbing in front of him, and he has a long sharpened stick in his hand.

"Hey I think I see something!" he calls.

He's calling around the lake to Annie, but that might not be apparent to any passers-by, since she's not immediately visible through the trees around the shore if you don't know she's there.

nb: Annie is not available for threading, but she is going to be floating around in the distance because the co-dependency is strong with these ones

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Cho hands over the package of four wraps, tucked in tightly together, and tied up with string. It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but the veggies are crisp, and it's well seasoned. Boring, but tasty. Tasty is good.

When Finnick says that Annie is around, Cho immediately starts looking. She doesn't see her, and while most people might just keep looking at eye level, Cho turns her gaze upward a bit. being short changes a person's instincts. She's used to scanning above her head. Annie's pretty tough to spot, though, and after about a minute, she gives it up. "Annie?" There's a bit of shifting in a tree, and Cho glances back at Finnick, pointing to ask for confirmation. When she gets it, she's back to grinning. "Be right back." She takes another paper wrapped parcel, and scampers over to the tree, having a brief conversation with the leaves before tossing the lunch up into the branches. Then she returns to Finnick.

"She's so strange," Cho says, with a little chuckle. "I love that." It makes her feel like normalcy isn't the only way to approach the world, to be valid and seen and cared for. It gives her hope. She stretches out on the bank again, leaning out over the water, watching for the fish. "So, what do you think of hummus?"

It takes a moment for Finnick to realize that 'so strange' had been said with affection. He's used to hearing Annie called far worse things: 'crazy', 'mad', or just being ignored as a victor because she didn't make for suitably glamorous television.

Interesting, sometimes, but not fitting the image of the victor. Not like Finnick.

But there's no dismissal or mockery in what Cho says, so he doesn't feel the same surge of annoyance he always did back in Panem. Cho doesn't know her history, any more than she knows Finnick's, or at least she acts like she doesn't. Meeting people here is the first time since he volunteered for the Games that he could say that about someone.

"It's a good place to watch my back," is all he says. While Cho was gone, he'd pulled his gray uniform trousers back on, though his boots and shirt are still sitting on the ground where he'd left them.

He settles onto the bank near Cho and takes a bite of one of the wraps. He recognizes some of the tastes, the vegetables and the herby mayonnaise flavor, but there's something tangy he's not familiar with. He's eaten a lot of different foods in the Capitol, but what's available in the districts, even to a victor, is much more limited.

"Mmm." He nods, then swallows. "This is good. You're good with the vegetables."

"Thanks." Cho has made a very firm decision to not stare at Finnick. He's her friend, and he is married to her friend, but he sure doesn't like making it easy. Would it kill him to put on a shirt? Or maybe just get a little fat. In that hope, Cho sits herself up properly on the grass and rummages in her bag to take out another package, this one folded from stiff brown heavy paper. "I made you some cake, too. To say, you know, thank you for saving my life."

She puts it on the ground between them. She's not going to attempt to throw any of this up into the tree for Annie. That would probably not end well. "I hope you like blueberries. I'm sorry I was so stupid."

What little modesty Finnick ever had was lost long ago in the public spotlight and the things he'd had to do in the Capitol. Not caring, even taking pride in himself, had been a way to cope for so long he sometimes forgets it can be unsettling. (Sometimes, he uses it as a weapon as much as the spear that's sitting beside him on the bank.)

He doesn't notice Cho is being careful not to stare because he's distracted by the package she produces. He grins, a flash of brilliant, genuine pleasure at the thought of cake.

"Thanks. I do. I appreciate it, you didn't need to thank me."

She's someone he knows, and she'd needed help he could give. He wasn't going to let anything happen to her if he could prevent it. Not here, where he could run and help her if she needed it, where he's not stuck watching on live television unable to do anything except send supplies.

"It's ok. You didn't know they were there."

If he had been her mentor, he'd have been screaming inside at what she'd done, but he's not, and she's no Career. Victors expect danger where it isn't, like to know what's behind them, turn too sharply at unexpected noises. Other people don't.

Cho feels like she should have known, but she's not sure how. She's just glad he seems surprisingly fine with it. She put them all in danger. She's going to feel awful about it for a long time, but it's a little bit of a comfort that he doesn't. "At least we have eggs now?" Trying to put a bright spin on it. "Huge eggs. Peter helped me go back and get some. Well, I mean, he went and got them. I brought the suitcase to move them in." Not exactly an equal division of labour. But it's the reason that this cake is actual cake, properly moist and with a legitimate crumb, and Peter was strangely enthused about the undertaking.

She is not making this sound any better. Right. Moving on! "Did you fish a lot back home? That's a really great lure." She's a lot more familiar with salt water fish, and fishing on a much larger scale, but she can recognize the skill.

"More food is good."

There's a reason the Hunger Games are called what they're called, and Finnick and Annie have both seen too many tributes starve to death, both been too hungry themselves, to underestimate how much of a difference something like eggs can make.

Fish, too. Fish most of all.

"Yeah," he says, in between bites of the wrap. "District Four, where we're from, it's the fishing district. My parents were fisherfolk. My men -- I guess you'd call her like my second mother, Mags, she taught me how to make lures like that. She could make them out of a couple of pieces of hair and a leaf, she was incredible."

He misses her. She'd have wanted to know what happened, that he'd been able to go public with his love for Annie, that they'd gotten married and they were never going to be forced apart again. Mags had died for that. To protect Annie, and to protect him.

There are a few different things that she wants to ask him, but Cho focuses on the most important bit of all, at least to the thoughts that have been running around in her mind over the last week or so. "The fishing district. So it's not a hobby or - that's what you do? Both of you? Everyone where you come from? You fish. That's-- the industry where you come from?" It's not exactly the same as breeding and farm raising them, but you have to understand fish to be able to catch them. You have to understand them very well.

That's useful. Particularly if she's right about what she saw, the details that she's been remembering around the terror and certainty of death. It's a project that's too big for her, but Finnick could help. Once it's safe, Annie could help, too.

He shakes his head and leans forward, shifting one leg to make his position more comfortable.

"We don't work. Annie did, for a while, and I go out sometimes still. But it's what we were supposed to do. Become fisherfolk like the rest of our families. We both spent a lot of time helping out on our families' boats when we were growing up."

He considers his next words for a moment, but what does it matter? He's already wanted for treason and sedition and revolution, poaching won't make any difference now.

"We'd fish for food, too. There was never enough money, and sometimes there'd be food shortages. Stealing from the catch was too risky, so you'd take what you could from the water."

This just gets more and more promising. Helping out on boats while growing up, and family boats at that. A single family profession. She's not sure how they could steal from their own catch, but maybe their parents were very strict. "Was it freshwater fishing, like this, or were you near the ocean?"

Yeah, she is now visibly excited, her shame and regret over her foolish choices seemingly forgotten. This could be wonderful. "Was there any sort of farming involved?" She doesn't specify that she means a fish farm. If he's unsure, then she's probably barking up the wrong tree. Which is still fine! She can teach them! The base knowledge, that's what's most important.

"The ocean. My parents had a deepwater fishing boat, and Annie's were shrimpers."

He's never met anyone not from District Four who got excited talking about fishing the way that Cho now very clearly is. Most people in District Four don't get excited about fishing, either; it's what they do, and it's not by choice, but because that's what the workers in their part of District Four do. Because they were born to it, and didn't have the ability and the charisma to go the Careers like he and Annie did.

Cho definitely has something on her mind: her eyes are bright and she sounds eager as she asks about fish farming.

"Not what we did, but there were farms for some of the other types of fish. Some of the freshwater lakes inland have huge farms on them so they can breed enough fish to maintain the populations with the amount they catch."

"That place where you had to come get me, I don't know if you looked around at all." She's pulling her tablet out of her bag, turning it on and opening the drawing program, her stylus moving across the screen. "I didn't make the connection right away, because I was so scared. The building that I was in had a lot of equipment that I recognize, though. I couldn't figure out why it was there at first, but then I started thinking about the land around it, the trees, and the bodies of water." She's sketching as she talks, the layout of the area, the building she was in, the uniform bodies of murky water, the shelters where tanks for spawning and the early growth stages would be, even the area for waste reclamation.

It's a hatchery. Up on the top level, among the areas for growing food and storing livestock, they have a hatchery. She just needs to get it all down so that she can explain that to him.

Finnick had seen the outside of the place. But he hadn't paid much attention to trying to put together details. He'd been focused on hiding places, on where the lizard mutts could be, how best to ensure Cho got out of there.

Cho clearly noticed something he hadn't; there's a focus in the way she starts drawing, so he leans a little closer, bending his head towards her so he can see what she's doing. She'd noticed more of the layout of the place than he had, and as she sketches buildings and ponds, something long-ago stirs in the back of his mind, resurfacing after years of irrelevance.

He moves a little closer, his brow wrinkling in concentration.

"Those pools are for fish. It's for farming, right?"

"Yes!" He sees it even before she's finished drawing and started explaining, and she feels like something in her body just inflated past the point of bursting, but did not burst, and has instead simply made her bigger.

Her impulse to hug him is strong, and she would probably give in and do just that if he'd put on his shirt, but he's still naked from the waist up, and so she finds it much easier to restrain herself. "I think it is a fish farm, or at least a hatchery with enough room for multiple concurrent spawns. Or, if it wasn't meant to be, it's set up pretty perfectly to be converted into one. I didn't get as close a look as I'd have liked." But she's getting carried away, and if this is a thing that can actually happen, the lookout should probably be invited into this conversation. "Annie!" Cho calls, too excited to spend the time to run over to the tree again. "I've got great news. About fish! How do you feel about coming over here for a little bit?"

Please don't make her climb a tree to share this.

Annie had been paying the pair attention. Of course she had. She's the lookout, and Finnick is her life. And ally. Cho's an ally, a... maybe a friend. (It's a strong word. But she likes her. It's a good start. And the sandwich Cho had given her is nice and not poisoned at all.) She's watching them and she's watching everything else, and it's that everything else she's concentrating on when she hears her name. Her name from Cho's mouth, in Cho's voice, not in Finnick's.

Excited. Not alarmed, not frightened, but excited.

"Fish?" Annie replies, not sure if she's loud enough to be heard or not. Still holding half the sandwich, she makes her way down the tree and lands lightly on her feet before walk over.

(She watches, as she walks. Keeps her sense alert. She still doesn't trust this park, this pond, or anything really here.)

"What's this about fish?"

Cho is still finishing her sketch on the tablet, but she gets up and runs over to meet Annie half way. "The upper levels have an area that looks like this." She shows her the same sketch she showed Finnick, explaining it all in the same way. "The buildings here are full of the more sensitive equipment, and then these pools of water could be cleaned out, and I think I saw filtration systems, and there are some roof only structures with the set-ups to house large tanks..."

She's practically vibrating, she's that excited. They could do this. They could really do this.

"Cho's been in there, Annie. It's a bit different from what we learned in school but it's a fish farm."

He's sure she'll be able to see it too, especially with the context of Cho talking about fish and showing what the different parts of her diagram mean. Annie had been at school longer than him; he doesn't know what they covered in those few years after he'd won the Games and gone to live in his mansion, never needing to worry about school again.

Cho's excitement is obvious, and so is Finnick's as he jogs after her, his shirt still forgotten on the bank.

"Do you think we could set it back up?" he asks.

The excitement is infectious and Annie? Annie is starting to smile back. Grin back. She knows fishing. She knows fishing, and it's honest, and it keeps people fed, and she'd like everyone to not start killing each other over food. And it's fishing.

"We should, right? If there's all that stuff still left. If we just have to clean it and maybe disinfect stuff, or or or, uh, fix other pieces of equipment, that's doable. Right, Cho?"

"Well... it's going to take a lot of work," Cho says, like she's apologizing. Annie looks so happy. Happier than Cho has ever seen (not that she knows the other woman well) and she hates that she can't just give her a fully functional fish farm right this second to keep that happy smile on her face. "We can do it, though. If you two will help me. I've worked out a rough plan. We're going to need to do a really thorough clean out of the area, because it's full of killer lizard... things. I don't know if there are tanks that we can re-purpose, and I feel like the filtration system has probably rotted away. We'll have to find a way to build a new one. I think. I didn't really get a chance to look over anything carefully. I was mostly just... running and screaming."

She should probably be embarrassed, but Finnick already knows. He was there. He saw her totally fail to be able to defend herself. And if Finnick knows, then Annie probably knows. Which she doesn't judge at all. They're two halves of a whole. It would make sense that they have no secrets from one another.

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ψ where do the codfish go? | OTA

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