So sorry I took so long to upload this, been really busy and also working on a picture of Rowin and Ember soon to be found at .com/ hope you like it!
The next few days pass uneventfully. Still no faces are visible in the sky, and the arena shows no sign of changing. We are probably being hunted by careers, and it's a surprise we haven't been found, the waterfall being a major landmark. But the deadly looking torrents of water seem uncross able, and therefore easily forgettable in the mind of a tribute. Food is exiting, water average, tributes a danger, sleep peaceful. Survival is all that exists for most, but we try to enjoy all that I have left. Rowin and I take cautious swims in the dark stretching water that looks to have no end. And sometimes, when the dawn is breaking and the vines are stirring with twittering chirping life, I play simple songs on the sleek carved robin. I store it in my pocket, always by my side.
I've taken to painting it with the many berries that speckle the jungle, taking care not touch the painted part with my mouth when I whistle through it, we have confirmed that the berries do change daily. So we keep to the animals that Rowin catches with the newly created bow and test the plants before mixing small amounts with the meal.
And so, each night when the mist thickens into a cloudy stew, Rowin and I start a candle-like fire and recount stories. We rarely talk of home, but when we do, it's about my adventures at high sea, or about Rowin's time scaling between the staggered trees by the corn fields. We both know how much we miss home. The salty breeze of the ocean, or the dry sun and crisp shadows of the field trees. But it also feels like a lost dream, where each morning you wake, trying to grapple the memory from slipping deep into the murkiness of you mind.
It must be the fifth day in the arena when we trek in the jungle on the other side of the gorge. It's almost the same as the other, except beside a quaint little pond, where six trees grow tall and straight. Their slim branches spread wide and bunch with prickly but harmless needles. And it is these trees that we scale in the full blast of the sun, shadowed by the thick greenery. The tops are shrouded in fog, and when we sit in the swaying bows the ground is a rolling sea of blue white. This must be how snow looks, I heard of it once. Soft crystalline clouds that coat the world in shimmery frosting. But I'm told it's cold. Like the cold of going to deep in the water but sharper. I can only imagine.
I'm proud to be this high off the ground. It's been to long since I last swung at the tips of the swaying mast. Peering into the white crested waves. Rowin climbs just as well, if not better. Lithe as a spider monkey twirling through the needles. I can tell that we both admire each other's skills, watching like birdwatchers sighting an albatross for the first time. We have only each other, and only for a while. Life is luck, and luck is never predictable. So we both understand the possibility that we'll wake together and see our partner in the sky that night. But that seems unlikely, not the dying part, just that the death recaps seem to be hiding. Even though we live in the present, I still can't help wonder what the capitol has in mind for us, it's true that nothing in the arena -including the mist- is created by accident.
I've found the time to collect a few coconuts and attach them as weights to the sturdy rope. I haven't had any use for it yet, but I keep it close most of the time. Never slacking my guard. Even now, when tributes are few and far between. But the one's left are deadly, most are careers no doubt. And no matter how much we wonder about them, me and Rowin wouldn't dare travel to the cornucopia, their original –and probably current- camp. The raised, cliff island would be easily patrolled. Just like the two chunks of land that split the waterfall into three. Finding our way onto them looks like one of the best decisions in the games so far. But then again, a tributes greatest advantage is often their greatest weakness. And no matter how much I live with the wind, trying not to worry about what is past, or what is to come, I can't ignore the voice inside me that predicts doom. There are times when I look into the sky, and wonder who will survive these games. When I wonder who is left. And often when I hope and dread the idea that Rowin and I are the only ones left to battle it out. But each time that the rise of excitement and terror finds my thoughts, I tell myself that there would have been a sign. The last two tributes would know there are no others. So when those thoughts take care of themselves, more fantasmical ones replace them, and I wonder what would happen if the last tributes all died at once, or if they decided to live in the arena forever. But then I know the capitol wouldn't allow it, just like they didn't allow the rebellion 100 years ago. And just as an added effect, they blew up a whole district and left it in smoldering toxins.
It's sitting in the tall green trees that we notice a small thing that would ultimately lead to catastrophe. Although the disaster was always bound to happen. There as we sway in the whispery winds accompanied by the soft rustling swish of the leaf needles in the air, the mist slowly receding below us, two figures entwined deeply in the clutches of ultimate death. Rowin pricks up, staring intensely into the jungle below.
No prints can be seen in the soft earth, a surprising sight in this land of rock. No trails of the living creatures that should abound. And for the first time, we both realize the quiet. Not as if it were ever loud, and still with the brushing wind and distant lapping of waves and the constant roar of the water which was exactly why we never noticed the missing ingredient before.
Life is silent, except for a call of a shadowing hawk that soars tensely in the sky. It's sharp, hungry eyes have detected the same problem as ours.
Where is the food?
And we both startle, our reactions so predictable to the other, we leap from branch to branch and finally land softly on the rough earth. We reach our camp in good time, refreshed and hurting from crossing the river falls. Rowin slings the bow onto his back on does the same with the quiver I created for the arrows. He smiles a goodbye before silently disappearing into the undergrowth. I can imagine that crossing the falls with a bow that you struggle not to get wet would be quite difficult.
So I sit cross legged on the rocky earth, letting water drip from my body and pool softly on the ground. I drag out the stash of random berries we found and begin to test them. We still have an awkward rabbit animal Rowin caught, but it would be smart to ration it if our concerns are correct. And so they are, Rowin returns a while later with nothing but a missing arrow.
"Here, these are good." I say pushing a division of the berries towards him. I know that dwelling on the lack of meat won't be smart. So I'm surprised when he starts up about it.
"I found a career." He says blankly, picking at a string of bright blue berries. "Shimmer I think."
I raise my eyes from the white trio of leaves in my hands. "She was alone?" I ask, because she didn't seem like the kind of girl to go walking around in the dangerous wild without an escort.
Rowin nods.
"And?" I continue.
He shrugs awkwardly while tucking the bow in the niche that I first used for berries. So I rise to my feet, and wrap my arms around him in comfort. Again, knowing each other, I can guess that Shimmer is dead. Now do I remember the muted noise of the canon that barely made its way over the pound of cascading water.
We find our way to the cliff that juts over the drop to the canyon where the water from the falls spills down and runs in a wide river. Here we wait, hand in hand, licking the splendid juice of the coconuts and nibbling on some of the roasted rabbit animal, for the sun to set. And as the painting of pinks and oranges drapes itself across the vastness of the sky, we become two silhouettes. Our eyes, green and blue, glittering from the sparkle of the falls. A perfect memory of stirring feelings in the coming darks of night.
Awwww, I'm really starting to feel sad about what's going to happen. D=Anyway, I needed this chapter to be written for what happens later to work. And yes that probably is the closest thing I'm going to get to romance since I'm thirteen and have zero experience with that stuff so no use trying to make them fall deeply in love or anything. Makes me sad since Rowin was the inspiring character for the whole story and, well... you'll see.