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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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."

"Who is this Aslan?" Finnick asks with a rough sort of laugh. "Is he on the island? She," he adds belatedly because he honestly has no idea if this person (is it even a person?) is male or female. "They give you a boat and transport you in time and place. Any other tricks they have up their sleeve?"

"He made Narnia," said Caspian, simply, because, really, there was nothing else to be said about it. "He was there at the very, very beginning, and it was through him that the Pevensies first came to Narnia. I don't know for certain, but I doubt there's anything that he can't do. I came very, very close to his country, once. Just before I came here, in fact."

He rolls one shoulder in a shrug and looks away. "It must sound strange to you."

Once again, Finnick's smile falters as he listens. Religion still exists in Panem, though it, like most everything else in the districts, is stifled under the oppressive weight of the government. Finnick only really knows of it through stories passed down from generation to generation, a million fantastic tales and myths of gods and goddesses, tragic heroes and heinous villains. Many of them included tales of how the world was made, created at the hands of one hand or many and ruled in varying shades of vindictiveness and peacefulness.

"It sounds like a story," he admits finally, his smile small and trying for warm. "But a good one, at least. There is no Aslan where I'm from. There's nothing like that."

It was the sort of smile that seemed fragile, hard won, and Caspian's own smile, when he turned his head, was definitely warm, and designed to be reassuring. He lifted one hand, almost reached out to squeeze Finnick's shoulder and thought better of it, letting his hand drop back to the sand.

"I imagine that he's there, somewhere," he said, quietly. "Even if you never saw him."

Finnick doesn't cringe or pull away as Caspian reaches for him even though, in his experience, those who do so are usually out to use him or harm him. Often simultaneously. But those same experiences have taught him to accept such advances. Welcome them. Because, to do otherwise, would only make the inevitable all the more painful.

"He isn't," Finnick says, somehow sure of that much. "And, if he were and chose to stay silent at the injustice so prevalent around him, than I would hate him."

His voice is quiet. Sure. He doesn't sound or even feel angry so much as matter-of-fact.