AN: I almost forgot to post this because I'm very much enthralled with The Wicked King by Holly Black at the moment and everything that is not a part of Elfhame just makes no sense right now.
But anyway! I hope you enjoy this weeks addition to the story, I had a lot of fun writing them in the arena!
Lily managed to find the stream fairly quickly.
As soon as she managed to pull her eyes away from the bow and arrow, she saw the lake situated just behind her and when the countdown ended, she took off running into the woods, to the right of the lake. Just as she'd hoped, it led her to a stream.
She crossed the stream and continued to get as far from the center of the arena as she could before it started to get dark. Then she zipped up her coat, found shelter in the form of a few fallen trees, camouflaged herself with a pile of leaves, and tried to sleep for as long as she could.
She thought that she only slept for a few minutes at a time, but then she opened her eyes after feeling as though she'd been trying to sleep for days, and it was suddenly morning.
She got up, trekked back to the stream and took a chance, reaching out a cupped hand, filling it with water and then bringing it up to her lips. It tasted clean and fresh, but that didn't mean anything.
So she spent the next hour waiting for any symptoms to kick in. Her stomach didn't start to cramp or become uneasy, her skin didn't flush, she didn't feel faint. She deemed the water safe and took in a few more handfuls.
Now that she'd made it through the first night, and found water, she'd have to go about finding herself some food.
And hopefully before the hunger set in.
Coming from 12, she'd like to think that her tolerance for hunger was better than most people. But she knew that if she went too long without food, especially having spent the last week gorging herself on the capital food, she would lose the ability to think clearly.
She didn't have any weapons, she didn't have any tools or string or wire. There was very little that she could do to hunt anything. The best she could manage was breaking off a stick and rubbing the end against a rough rock until there was the start of a point at the end.
She sighed at her pathetic spear and wondered if perhaps she should have risked something yesterday and gone for some of the supplies at the outer edge of the bloodbath.
She stripped her shoes off and stepped into the river, almost smiling when she felt fish swim up against her ankles. If there were so many fish that they were instantly touching her, then it shouldn't be too hard for her to catch one, pathetic spear or not.
It did take her a while though. The sun was high in the sky by the time she had a fish the size of her hand attached to the end of the spear. It wasn't much, but it would be something in her stomach.
Building a fire was the easy part, scaling the fish was harder. But she managed to get as much as she could from the fish before she buried what was left near the riverbed so that no one would find the remains.
Then she decided it was time to move.
Once she'd decided to move, fear crept up her back. She had been in once place for too long. She'd taken too long to fish, to cook the damn thing, to peel the small bits of meat out of it. Anyone could have snuck up on her, anyone could have been watching her, lying in wait.
She stomped her feet on the ground, trying to get the fear and anxiety to shoot out of her limbs and leave her be. Worse than having already made mistakes was dwelling on them, which would make her susceptible to making even more mistakes.
She was just about feeling better when the forest went dead silent and a canon went off.
Lily looked across the river, feeling quite certain that all of the other tributes were still on the other side. Not certain enough to not look over her shoulder as well, scan the woods behind her. But it was all still on her side.
And then she heard footsteps pounding on the riverbed and she jumped backward, sinking into the trees and their shadows.
It looked to be the girl tribute from District 7, her brown hair flapping wildly behind her as she ran, her eyes resolutely forward.
Lily could hear her pursuers, but the girl didn't turn around to look as Lestrange and the other careers came into view. Lily pushed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and willed her breathing to become silent. She knew that it was foolish to think that they would be able to hear her breathing over the sounds of the water, of even over the sounds of their footfalls, but the way that they were all smiling had her blood running cold.
"Running only makes it more fun for us," Lestrange called out. "More like a sport that way!"
Emma Vanity was from district 1 and she had blood splattered all over her smiling face. Blood of the person that they had just killed.
Lily's mind jumped to James and she reached up and put a hand around her throat.
What if they had just killed James? What if they were laughing and gleeful as they ran away from his dead body?
She couldn't take her eyes off of them as they ran, but she felt herself getting sick at the thought of James lying dead someone near her.
She could hear her heart beating in her ears as she watched Lestrange pull a blade from his pocket and stop running. He threw the blade, almost lazily, and it struck the girl in the back of her leg. Lestrange grinned as though that was what he wanted all along.
"The last one died too quickly." He said, his tone more serious now, not mocking or jeering. He wasn't talking to the girl anymore, he was talking to Emma or himself or maybe the people watching this back in their homes.
The capital would go crazy when they heard him say that. It promised that this death would be slow and bloody. The girl from District 7 wasn't so young that her death would be tragic, it would be fully sport, extreme entertainment.
Lily didn't know the names of the other careers, she hadn't paid them enough attention, but she was glad that she didn't know their names now. She saw the way they all smiled at Lestrange, saw the way they all gathered round the girl, happy to watch him do whatever he wanted to her, and Lily wished that she had her bow with her now.
Thinking that she wished she had it, drew her attention to the bow. It was slung clumsily over the shoulder of the girl from District 2. Lily swore under her breath and then pushed herself further into the woods. She didn't want to stick around to see what became of the girl. She didn't want to see what became of those enjoying her death. And she definitely didn't want to stay long enough for them to spot her. She didn't want to know what kind of death she had waiting for her at their hands.
As soon as she was far enough away from them, she took off running, back the way she came from. She ran past where she'd fished, past where she'd slept the night before and stopped only because something on the other side of the river caught her eye.
Blood.
The helicarrier must have come and taken the body already, but the blood was still there, staining the ground.
"James." She didn't mean to say his name aloud, and she reached up to touch her fingers to her lips after she did. Keeping anymore loose words trapped inside.
Though it probably played well for the cameras too.
Not that she could focus on the actual game at the moment. She had no way of knowing if the blood on the other side of the river belonged to James or not.
The careers hadn't said anything about who it was that they killed, only that they had died too soon. She supposed that maybe she should be hoping that it was James. If it was a quick death and she didn't have to witness it, she should be glad. But thinking that she was now in a world that James Potter was no longer a part of…
It didn't seem possible. He had a light about him that didn't seem like anyone would be capable of dimming. He was too big, too proud, too alive for a blood stain to be the only thing left of him.
And then she was thinking about all the parents and friends and family that felt the exact same way after watching their loved one die in the games.
And then she felt a bit like a prat for thinking of James as a 'loved one' in any sense.
She pressed her palms against her eyes and leaned back against a tree. Maybe the water was messing with her after all.
She stayed hidden for a while, trying to find her footing and convince herself to hope that James was dead. It wasn't working well, but eventually her heartbeat faded from her ears and she felt somewhat normal again.
Then she stripped out of her shoes and tried to catch another fish.
She was more careful this time, making sure to keep her back to the side of the river she'd been keeping to, and to pause ever five minutes or so to scan the woods in front of her.
She managed to catch a slightly bigger fish than she had that morning, but it was nearly dark when she managed to scale it, which meant that she'd have to be faster with cooking it and picking it apart.
She got more bones stuck in her teeth than she had earlier, but she was a fair bit faster. She had her fire out and buried before the sun was gone and then she stood and looked around.
She wasn't sure where she should hide for the night. She looked up and thought that it would be nice to climb up in the trees, but she didn't want to risk falling and injuring herself. That wouldn't do her any good.
She managed to make it to the start of the second night, but she still didn't feel like she was any better off than she had been when she was standing on her platform watching the numbers tick down.
She chewed on the tip of her tongue and decided to go back to the fallen trees. She'd makes sure that she found somewhere new tomorrow morning, it would be the first thing she did, but tonight she'd go to the trees.
She was tucked in and out of sight by the time that the capital anthem started to play. Lily dug her fingernails into her palm and held her breath as she waited to see the two people who had died tonight.
The girl from District 7 was shown first and Lily felt a weight fall onto her chest. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't go any longer without knowing.
The boy from District 9 appeared in front of her and she let out a thick, shaky breath, letting her eyes fall shut. The relief floored her, and she felt tears spring to her eyes. It was a stupid, emotional reaction, but she was as safe as she could be in this awful place and she needed to feel whatever it was she was feeling when she could.
James was not dead, and Lily let herself be grateful.