thetenth | (no subject)

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finnick odair

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And still he found himself drawn to the ocean. In the first three years of his reign in Narnia, he hadn't had as much time as he'd like to spend time on the water, but still those names had arrived - Seafarer, Navigator. He had comissioned the Dawn Treader built and those days, those first days before the green mist and the dragon, those were some of the happiest of his life. It had felt like freedom, pure and simple. It had felt like flying. He had woken to discover a small boat, its sail in green and gold, small enough for one man to sail comfortably, a cabin to be slept in, and, painted on the side, in gilt letters, was her name.

The Queen of Narnia.

He'd spent all morning in and out of the boat, and then decided to strip and swim. He'd spent a pleasant half an hour or so dipping and diving before he emerged, pushing his hair back from his face.

This place, he thought.
He could be happy in a place like this.

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That was enough to make Caspian laugh, a low chuckle as he shook his head. For a long, long time, he hadn't really known who he was, which is a difficult thing to bear, even for the bravest of hearts.

"A king has many demands on his time," he said, simply. "I can't remember the last time I was at home for more than a week before this."

Turning his attention from the ocean back to Caspian, Finnick arches an eyebrow.

"King. You're a king," he says, his tone hovering somewhere between amused, doubtful, and intrigued.

"King Caspian...the Tenth. Of Narnia," supplied Caspian helpfully. "Though I don't know where that is in relation to here."

He arched an eyebrow.

"And I don't think it matters, anymore. Bowing won't be necessary."

"Well, I guess that's a pity," Finnick says with a soft huff of disbelief. "I've been told I perform well on my knees."

The quip comes out smoothly; borne of pure, driven instinct anymore and not from genuine interest. Over the past several years he's nearly forgotten the difference between the two. There's only ever been one person with which he's always known.

"I don't miss it so much," admitted Caspian, any implication sailing over his head because, well, it simply did not occur to him that there could be any other meaning to anything that Finnick said at all. It was not that Caspian was a complete innocent; far from it. It was that he had existed in a different world.

"It's rather...startling to suddenly be free of responsibility and able to make my own way."

Strangely, Finnick isn't upset that Caspian missed his joke. If anything, it almost comes as a relief because, though he hadn't really been thinking when the words slipped out, back in the Capitol the statement would've been taken as pure invitation.

Just the thought makes Finnick's skin crawl. So he shoves it aside, still squinting at the man -- the king -- sitting casually beside him. It's funny; he doesn't look much like a king.

But then, the closest Finnick's seen to one is Snow, a man who is king in all but name. And this Caspian, thankfully, looks nothing like Snow.

"What about your people?" he can't help but ask, wondering if Caspian's kingdom is as corrupt as Panem. If this man, though he doesn't resemble Snow physically in any way, is as blinded by power. "You don't worry about them?"

"I'm told that I'm still there, through magic," said Caspian, solemnly, and then he glanced back at Finnick, eyes studying his face for a moment while he thought about it. "But, even if I am not, the Narnians are capable of governing themselves fairly and truly. There's peace in all corners of the realm, now. I imagine they can cope well enough without me. And I'll learn how to be something new."

He doesn't sound like Snow. Finnick can't honestly imagine the President speaking of fairness and truth in such a manner. At least, not without completely distorting their meanings. And, if Snow were here -- the very idea of which is something Finnick never wants to imagine -- he'd already be taking actions to seize power, not simply sitting back and learning how to "be something new."

Relaxing a little, he glances back out at the ocean. "I can't imagine that'll be easy," he says. "A king to a pauper. Won't you get bored without anyone to order around?"

"Ed and Peter seem to manage easily enough," he said, though he suspected Edmund found it easiest of all of them and not least because of Charlie, who Caspian was still coming to understand, though he found that he liked the other man very much.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"And I suppose I can always find someone to let me order them around briefly, if the need gets too pressing."

Finnick succeeds in biting back an impulsive reply this time, one he surely would've spoken back in the Capitol. It dawns on him that, if this place is real and not just a creation of his mind, then he doesn't have to say such things anymore. He doesn't have to pretend.

But now is not the time considering such a thing and he doesn't let his mind wander for long before turning his attention back to Caspian, smiling faintly. "And Ed and Peter are...?"

"The High Kings of Narnia," said Caspian, simply, because, really, that was the only thing that needed to be explained. "Or Peter was the High King and Edmund was a King like me. Brothers. And my brothers. The closest thing to family that I have."

His smile takes on a different, softer look and his attention drifts away from Finnick, back to the sea. "Theirs was the golden age and they have been there for Narnia more than once in time of need."

The mention of brothers makes Finnick look away again, staring once more at the stretch of water before them. Kai had been only twenty-four -- exactly the age Finnick is now -- when Finnick's actions had gotten him killed. Despite how hard Finnick's tried to forget, not a day goes by where he succeeds.

"So you're a Low King?" Finnick asks, fighting to keep his smile strong, to show nothing of the age-old guilt twisting his gut. "Are there other levels of king, as well? Left King and Right King, maybe? Slightly Adjacent King? Around the Corner King? Third King from the Bottom?

Rolling his eyes, Caspian laughed, looking, for a moment, younger. Responsibility has a way of adding age to a person, and it would be easy to forget that Caspian was only twenty-one years old, not much of his life lived at all.

"Oh, I imagine so," he says, airily. "It's all very complicated. We're just lucky that we only have one King at once now, or we'd never keep it straight."

Finnick's smile turns a little more genuine when Caspian laughs, a familiar relief in providing amusement for someone else. That, at least, is usually easier and cheaper to provide.

"And that's Peter," Finnick says, still struggling to keep it straight. "The High King, as you say. And he's here, I'm assuming. On this island somewhere, which is why you're no longer a king."

"Previously the High King," said Caspian, tone level and patient as he tried to explain something that, admittedly, would be difficult to follow for anyone who hasn't understood Narnian history. "In the Golden Age. That's a thousand years ago, before Telmarines like me ever came to Narnia. But those kind of things always hold true in Narnia, so Peter will always be High King and Ed will always be King, even though there's been ten Caspians and all the others since then."

He gave Finnick an apologetic smile, somewhat crooked.

"But can you really be a King, when there's nothing to reign over?"

Finnick's fairly sure he still doesn't understand, but he nods anyway, not particularly concerned with the kings and high kings of a country that isn't his own and isn't here.

"And so now you're spending your time reigning over the waves and the sun," he says, flashing another grin.

"Something like that," said Caspian, and he thought that, probably, he ought to dress, his clothes discarded on the deck of the skiff, but there was so much pleasure in the sun on his skin.

"I find it difficult to muster any urgency about it."

"It has that way sometimes," Finnick agrees, letting out a slow breath as he leans back, legs stretched out in front of him and turns his face up to the sun.

"The beaches back home aren't quite like this," he says, letting himself remember briefly. "So wide open and clean." So much less about survival than pleasure.

He found himself silent, for a moment, head turned towards Finnick, watching his profile.

"What was your home like?" he asked and then realised that he might have overstepped a boundary. "Please: ignore me if I misspeak."

Finnick can answer only with a soft laugh at first, shaking his head. Panem feels impossible to describe. The district, the place he really considers home, had been wonderful and horrible in equal parts. But he could say the same of the Capitol for entirely different reasons.

"It was... difficult at times," he finally manages, ignoring Caspian's quiet apology. With a soft smile and a teasing tone, he adds, "Life is different for those of us not born kings."

"Being born a King doesn't mean that life's not difficult, sometimes," said Caspian, thinking of Miraz and the battle at Beruna. He bit his lip for a moment, eyes closed against the glare of the sun.

"And we'll both of us change now? Home's a long way away."

In Finnick's experience, being a king or a president or any kind of powerful authority means exactly that. Unless there's difficulty in deciding just exactly which delicious meal to eat and how man beautiful pieces of art to decorate a single room.

Or how many people to punish and how severely for a task done poorly.

"Is it? I mean, do we know that for certain," he asks, bending his knees to dig his heels and toes into the smooth sand. "Do any of us know that this place is actually real? Because, I have to say, I'm not entirely convinced."

Caspian pushed up onto one elbow, looking down at the other man's face. He arched an eyebrow.

"If it's not real, what is it? I have known people travel through time and space, bought from world to the other." He shrugged. "It doesn't seem so far-fetched to me."

Frowning slightly, Finnick studies Caspian's face, searching for some indication that he's joking. But the man looks completely sincere and Finnick can only interpret that as furthering his point. The pure ridiculousness of this place and its inhabits can only mean he's gone crazy.

"Yeah, well where I'm from, it's pretty unheard of," he says, his smile faltering somewhat. "There's only one world: the one we're born into. And we stay there and we live and work through it or we fight if we need to. We don't just... blink and appear in other places. That doesn't happen."

He lay still under Finnick's scrutiny, because he could see how it might sound - outlandish and strange, too odd to be believed.

"From what I understand, only the Pevensies had the way of it, and it was all Aslan's doing," he said. "But here we are, so I suppose we must make the best of it."