Madeline is a nice girl. Very quiet and very sweet. I knew this already, of course but now it was proved in my mind just how sweet she was. She would feed birds if we had some food to spare. But, there was this other side to her. The quiet hunter. She became like a wild cat, ready to spring. She killed with a small knife and rarely damaged the kill. While she certainly wouldn't do well in a fight, she could kill in the shadows.

Part of me thought that's why she decided to help me. By helping me, I would be in her debt, therefore if we were attacked I would defend her along with myself. And I had to admit, that was smart on her part. Not to pat my own back but I'm a good one to have around. I have the weapon, (Which she saved for me, the sweet girl) and the strength to take on several opponents at once.

The two of us domesticated ourselves around each other easily. We had an unspoken agreement on who did what. I fed Luck, our beast. She did the hunting. I went with her, just to watch her back. I also cooked the food while she gathered supplies. We managed to survive. We also found out why we were left at peace. The boy from 1, Francis and Arthur, the bastard who was there when Gilbert was killed were fighting. We saw them, once.

Arthur seemed to be back to normal, his hair darker and his eyes green once more. He and Francis seemed to have a game going in between their fighting. Almost like... Flirting. Mostly from Francis, but still.

"Oh hon~ Mon cher, you can do better than that~" Francis said as he dodged another swing of Arthur's sword.

"Shut up!" He yelled taking another quick swing. This one barely cut Francis on the arm.

"Every time I get close, I get cut~ Do your lips sting as well?" He asked with a smirk. "If yes then I might still be willing to try to kiss them~"

"Come on then, give it a try." Arthur said, his sword pointed at Francis' neck. "Come close I and I take off your head~"

It must be keeping the Capital entertained. Which is good for the rest of us, but once one of them was dead, or if it went on too long we were in trouble. Madeline and I both knew this.

"We can handle whatever the throw at us." I told her one night. But I mostly said it for myself. "We can take it and get past it."

"Antonio..." She said quietly.

"Yes?" I asked sitting down next to her.

"What if it's just us." She asked. "At the end, what if it's just us. One of us has to die."

"I know... I've been trying to avoid thinking about that." I said sitting next to her.

"I would kill you." She said. "It would hurt, because you're so nice, but I would do it. I won't unless it comes to that, I just wanted you to know that you can't trust me not too."

"I know." I said "I would kill you too. Not because I want to live that badly. For Lovino. If it wasn't for him, I would let you. I'd even do it myself so you wouldn't have to but I can't. If I die. I think that might be it for Lovino." I didn't look at her. "I think he would kill himself."

"You really think he's that dependent on you?" She asked.

"No. I just assume he would, because if this was the other way around, and he was here and he died. I would end it. I wouldn't last the night." I said. It was true. I couldn't live without Lovino.

"You too are very sweet together." She said. "It's almost too good to be true."

"It's not all smiles." I said softly. "He can be rude and just... Mean sometimes. I'm no better. I've said some nasty things to him that I regret. I'm glad we weren't fighting before I came here. Because I'm not all to sure I'll make it back. I mean I hope I will. But..."

"I get it. It seems impossible. Like there's this big blade hanging over your head that could drop any second, and you feel like you can't breath and you just want to keep living." She pulled her legs into her chest. I rubbed her back.

"That's it. Right on the head." I said, my hand going to the ring on my neck. And we sat there, just sitting until we fell asleep.

I got up early the next morning and fed Luck. I didn't wear as many leaves as normal, and he didn't seem to mind. He ate his dear happily, paying no mind to me. I smiled I hopped back under the branches, double checking on Madeline. She was sleeping deeply. Or I thought she was, you could never tell with Madeline. I ate a few berries to start with, and tossed the leaves off. I double checked our resources and did a check on what we had. We were low on water... I should go get some. I grabbed my ax, slinging it over my shoulder and grabbed the tin of water. I woke Madeline enough to let her know I was leaving, and threw the leaves back over myself, then set off. The walk to the river was a peaceful one, the sun just rising over the top of the trees. I got my water, drinking a bit with my hands, before getting set to walk back to camp. It must have been about ten minutes into my walk that I heard a shout of terror, naturally I ran towards it.

When I found where the noise was coming from I jumped into action. The boy from district 4, was under a giant spider that looked like it was going to eat him. With a slash of my ax, I cut off one of the spider's legs. It hissed in pain, and turned on me, it's pinchers dripping some kind of red substance. I swung my ax at it, and hit it in the face. It screamed, and came at me harder. I chopped at it desperately, trying to get it to die.

Eventually I managed to get its head off. The body fells to the ground, its giant legs spazzing slightly. I stood up, and pulled my ax from it's head, then turned to face the boy. He was already standing. I gave him a small nod. He gave me a small smile.

"Thank you." He said before jetting off into the woods and out of sight.

I sighed and threw my ax over my shoulder and headed off back to camp. Took me awhile to find it, but I eventually did. I came in and laid down, still covered in spider guts. Madeline wasn't there, I figured she was be hunting. I closed my eyes for a bit of a nap.

"Wake up..." Madeline whispered to me. My eyes fluttered open.

"Hmm...?" I asked.

"What is on you?" She asked.

"Spider guts. Don't ask." I said sitting up.

"Oh..."

"What time is it?" I asked, the sun had already set.

"No idea... I just have a bad feeling... Something is going to happen soon... It's been getting very cold very fast..." She said softly.

"I guess they got bored... So they turned on the Winter. This is good. For us, anyway. We thrive in cold weather." I said with a hopeful smile.

"Right... We do, don't we..."

"Yeah! The rest of them, are used to warm weather and not 5 feet of snow. We'll be fine." I said laying back down.

"Yeah..."

Little did we know, just what they were doing.

fisafoijfpo Guys. I'm sorry. This is so short. And bad. I hope you like it anyway!