Three. Three fucking matebonds.
The ancestors had looked at Serena Frostborne and said, "You know what this girl needs? More bullshit. Pile it on. Really stack the deck until the whole damn table collapses."
Finnick Shadowclaw slept like dog shit, and when he woke up that morning, he immediately wished he hadn't.
The ceiling was the same ceiling. The pain was the same pain. The existential confusion had settled in like a tenant who'd already changed the locks.
The stab wounds and his ribs made themselves known immediately. His body was still healing which meant he could not shift, and shifting was the thing he needed because shifting was running and running was the thing Finnick Shadowclaw did when his chest was full of things he didn't like. Some cultures called those things 'feelings,' but he didn't have those because he was a man among men.
