redshiftlogs | ψ green was the color of the grass

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ψ green was the color of the grass | OPEN

Who: Finnick Odair + YOU
What: Obstacle course and fish farming
When: August
Where: The park and around the agricultural level
Warnings:

cold was the steel of my axe to grind; park, physicals time

Finnick has kept a comparatively low profile since he came to this place. Yes, the visitors on the strange ship had feted him and Annie and he'd played up to their attention, writing ridiculous poems for them and playing the crowds like he would in the Capitol. But on a daily basis, the Odairs have been living a quiet life, unrecognizable after the fame they'd known in Panem.

Finnick's still not used to people not knowing exactly who he is and all the details of his life.

He also hasn't been really showing off as much as he would have in some similar situations in Panem.

But when he's faced with an obstacle course with an option for a combat run, he tells the bots immediately to sign him up.

He'll run against anyone who's game, and when he doesn't have competitors, he runs against the bots. This is familiar. This is fun.

gold was the color of the leaves; agruicultural level & park

When he was a child, if anybody had told Finnick that one day he'd be perfectly happy doing nothing more with his day than hard work at a fish farm, he wouldn't have believed them. As a child, he'd been ambitious. He'd known that his charm and his looks could help him be more than just a fisherman, just a fisherman's son. So he'd trained as a Career and he'd missed those last few years of school because victors don't have to go to school, and he'd known that he'd never actually be a fisherman as a way of life. He could use it to help out fishing crews occasionally, or skindive for food in the arena or to teach his allies how to find and cook shellfish. But it wasn't his life.

Since he came to Anchor, though, it has been. Cho and Annie had worked hard to take the lab on the agricultural level from abandoned to actually able to create the start of a broodstock. They've been doing the scientific work, and Finnick provides much of the labor. He feeds the fish in the hatchery and in the ponds, he hauls supplies, he moves the fish between the hatchery and the ponds, and sometimes, he moves fingerlings down into the park to release into the lake.

Which is why, today, there's a man dressed in grey military fatigues carrying buckets through the bottom level of the city, making his way towards the park.

Finnick sets the buckets down and kneels on a rock by the edge of the lake.

"You ready?" he asks the fish.

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Pratt has been handling the farm; taking care of his small herd of deer, the cattle, the few chickens that Ami had found. And he'd started the vegetable plots to get some agriculture going and hopefully sustain them with more than what was in cold storage in the kitchen.

However; the fishery was foreign to him, he'd never really gone there, though he'd seen the big holding tanks at a distance.

He's heading out to go upstairs when he spots Finnick, in military uniform with a bucket, right on the edge of the lake. "What do you have there?"

Pratt sounds haggard as usual, but also curious. Maybe the man caught some strange new alien species and is releasing it for all he knows.

Finnick is aware of Pratt, aware of him in the same sort of way that Four was aware of Ten. They knew they were there, knew that there was important work going on that was supplemental to their own, but without really engaging with him. Still, he knows the man by sight because he makes it his business to know the people here by sight, know something of comings and goings and who does what.

But he's a little less aware of his surroundings than he usually is, focused as he is on the precious cargo he's carrying. He only looks around once he's sure he has the bucket settled steadily at the water's edge.

"Fingerlings."

It takes a moment to remember that not everybody is as versed in fishing as he is, as a child of District Four. "Juvenile fish."

He's thankful for the clarification because his first assumption was potatoes and that would make this situation even weirder.

"Oh, from the fishery? I didn't realize they were all growed up and ready to go free." He heads closer to watch, he'd seen ponds stocked for fishing before, but this seemed different. The ones up at the fishery were definitely for eating, releasing them in the park seemed to indicate they were getting set free to live their lives in the park pond.

"We haven't met, I'm Pratt."

"Ready enough," Finnick replies. "We thought the ecosystem in here could use a boost."

Things had gotten out of balance while Anchor was unoccupied, thrown out kind of like the forests on the agricultural level stalked by mutated things that once used to be recognizable animals. The pond hadn't been full of mutts, but the populations hadn't been stable. He and Annie (and Cho when she'd been here) had been working on restoring the balance, with the aim of a healthily self-sustaining ecosystem that could support some small-scale or recreational fishing in addition to the food stocks in the fishery.

"Finnick Odair. I've seen you around the farming area, yeah?"

"Yeah this place is out of whack. There's areas of the agricultural level that are almost like wilderness, and then there's parts that are well tended and overly managed. Like they couldn't decide what they wanted to do. Though I guess a lot of that is because it's been abandoned."

He nods in response, tucking his hands into his pockets and watching the fish swim to freedom. "Yeah, I'm managing that herd of deer up there in the hopes we can maybe start using them for meat or hide. But not this first generation, gotta breed the irradiation out of them."

Momentarily he looks away, remembering that Kieran wasn't around to see how far the tiny farm had come. He would have enjoyed that.

"I feel like I'm sendin' em off to school," Annie says, a little glumly. "Or on their first job on someone else's boat."

This isn't the first time they've released fish. And it's not as if she's personally attached - they are not pets.

But.

She still does fret, a little, over making sure their new environment is up to standard.

She's got her own bucket, which she's been switching from one hand to the other. She'd strained her wrists a bit more than she'd care to admit - two buckets are beyond her, but she's insisting on at least one. She'd worked on these fish, dammit. The actual pouring into the water, she's leaving to Finnick. It requires a bit more balance.

"Yeah, but we raised them well. They'll do great."

He knows what she means. But he also knows that they've been working very hard on monitoring conditions in the lake, ensuring they'll have enough food, and making sure the fish have had the best possible start with the best possible nutrition and conditions under the circumstance. A circumstance which includes Cho no longer being here and neither Finnick nor Annie having actually been fish farmers in more than education before they came here. But they've been studying as best they can from the available books, and Annie remembered a lot more from school than Finnick did.

So far, it's working. And these fish will add to the ecosystem they're trying to support in the lake.

"How's your bucket going?" The fingerlings in the two buckets Finnick had carried look as lively as they can in their limited space. That's good.

Annie gives him a sideways look. Not without humour, and the humour is kind. She knows what he is saying, and what he is saying beneath it. He is saying, don't worry. It'll be okay.

And it will. Probably. They've run tests.

Still.

"We've made sure they know how to tie their shoelaces," she says, as if in agreement. Well. That's how his phrasing suggested it, they'd raised the baby fish well.

"They're okay. It's probably an adventure, being in a bucket."

"Yeah, can't you see the shoes on their little fins?"

He does get it, and it's clear from the way she looks at him that she does know that. Her eyes are soft, but she's humoring him.

That's okay. If she's humoring him, she's less focused on worrying about their fishy charges.

"Think about it, this is the furthest from home they've ever been. Definitely an adventure. Big things going on."

She's distracted by a moment by the thought of fish with, actual, little shoes. Little boots, maybe. For working the seas. Or should it be sandals? Diver flippers?

Her suddenly impish smile is a bit delayed, but it's genuine entertained. The mental images are adorable.

It makes her long for a sketchbook. And pencils. Always have to double check the wording with things like this.

"At least all the roots and plants will be more interesting for them. Far more things to do than in their creche tank."

Her smile gets a bright grin back from her husband. He'd intended that mental image to have that effect, and he can see in her face that it's taken flight in her thoughts just as he'd intended it to.

"Yep," he agrees. "A nice balanced diet of things expertly grown for them. And all this space to explore." He makes a vague waving gesture that encompasses all the water in front of them. "The lake is their oyster. Speaking of."

Finnick dips a hand in the water, leaving it there while he pokes a finger into one of his buckets.

"Temperature feels pretty good to me."

They're doing alright with fish. They are. But oysters? Now that'd be beyond them. Not that Annie says so - it's just a saying - but her mind's eye is briefly filled with attempts of trying to turn the lake into an oyster farm.

Not even for pearls or a change of diet. Nope.

"Okay. Well. Here we go, put them in."

She'll watch, and take back the empty buckets.

And...

Try not to worry.

He doesn't notice the moment when she considers the implication of the saying. Finnick's focused on the feel of cool water on his skin. Besides, even if he'd seen her turn thoughtful, even knowing her as well as he does, he still knows he doesn't understand all the ways her mind works or the associations she makes. It's part of what makes her so wonderful: he both knows her better than anybody and will never quite understand her more lateral thinking.

As it is, he withdraws his hand from the bucket at her command, and picks it up.

"Ok guys, time for your new home." He lowers it gently, until the water from the lake seeps into the bucket, mingling with the water they'd brought from the fishery ponds, lifting the fish and giving them the chance to swim out of the bucket.

Annie watches the fish.

She watches as the water gently fills the bucket, swirling with the water already in there, starling the fish even further. She sees the tiny currents push them and then watches as the fish flood out into the lake, all quick tails and darting movements as they vanish into their new home.

She watches, and she thinks.

Some of the fish will die. It's the way of things. But most, hopefully, will thrive.

And, fish being fish, those who die will feed those who'll live. It can be very simple, being a fish.

Annie smiles, a little.

"There we go. They're off."

Light catches on tiny scales as the fist dart out of the bucket, scattering for the shelter of plants, rocks, who-knows-what submerged objects that might be a little further out. It reminds him for a moment of watching tiny schools of fish too small for anything but delighting a child glinting in the rockpools of home. It brings with it a faint pang of something like homesickness. Not for Panem as such, but for Four.

It's only fleeting, though, because he knows how much he's gained by being brought here. And if he can raise and release fish to get by instead of living off his victor's winnings, that's fine in a way he'd never have thought it could be.

"Let's give them the rest of their friends, hey?" he says, crouching again by one of the other buckets and shaking off the thoughts of Panem.

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ψ green was the color of the grass | OPEN

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