Spark to Flame: A Finniss Story

Pt I: Clear to Smoke

Pt I.

It's dark.

The training room is lifeless and empty, with nothing to aid her eyesight except the dimly lit overhead lights descending down the length of the room in a pale, never-ending row, and the deafening silence leaves a barely audible ringing in her ears. It's strange - almost creepy - how different the place looks at night, when no one else is there. The space that she and Peeta and the others had occupied just hours before is now hollow, without any form of energy or life, and goosebumps form on her arms as the chill it holds finally wafts over her bare arms and collarbone.

Katniss exhales, an action that would have been silent if the room wasn't so empty, and steps forward, intent on doing what she came here to do.

She walks, the muscles in her calves loosening and contracting with each step as she glances over at the different stations.

Archery, melee, trapping...

Finally she sees it - the rope station.

Gradually, she changes direction and shifts towards her destination of choice, not really knowing why she's chosen it other than she hasn't tried it yet, and as she draws nearer she almost doesn't expect it to power on - after all, why would any of the simulations work after training hours? - but nevertheless it does; she steps onto the pressure-sensitive tile and the screen comes on, its bright blue light making her eyes ache in the surrounding darkness, and everything in her peripherals quickly fades to complete blackness.

She exhales again and starts the simulation, choosing at random what she's going to learn. The program chooses the lesson based on her selection, and suddenly she's berated with moving images of transparent rope knotting itself together all too quickly, and she realizes that she has no knowledge of rope or knots and that she probably should have chosen something of an easier difficulty, but still she tries. After all, she has nothing better to do; the nightmares have gotten worse, and she doesn't want to give Peeta another sleepless night.

She grabs the practice rope hanging off of the metal hook in front of her, failing several times over to recreate the knot the screen is showing her, but is not discouraged or deterred. She will get this knot, even if it takes her all night.

~*~

An immeasurable amount of time later, and she still can't get it right.

The rope just won't look how she wants it to look, no matter how many twists and turns and loops she does, and she becomes frustrated that the Capitol wouldn't have made a slower video tutorial for those with little to no experience with rope-tying. Though she regrets her decision to choose such a complicated knot at random, she's not in the least bit discouraged. Angered, yes, but even though a considerable amount of time has passed she can't find it in herself to just give up.

"Light sleeper?"

She whips her head to her left, her sore neck cracking a little with the sudden movement, concentration broken as her eyes fall on the ever-flawless form of Finnick Odair.

She doesn't know what he's doing up at this hour, but she doesn't particularly care, either. She's not really in the mood to talk, as Finnick is so famously known to do (when he's not 'entertaining' guests, that is), but she is quick to come to terms with the fact that she will no longer be able to ride out the night in quiet solace as she wracks her brain and whips up a reply.

"...No. But I am now."

He walks closer then, as if her answer somehow doubled as an invitation to indulge in smalltalk and invade her personal space, and it suddenly feels like the station she's situated at isn't thirty meters away. She turns her head and focuses her attention back on the rope.