I INTERRUPT THIS STORY! The stylist I made was Ronda Nona. Anybody who guessed that gets two sponsor points. I forgot to say that until now, so here it is.
Ambrose Caraway (D2M)
When Sebastian and Glacine finally came back from their hunt, Minos and I could finally figure out what took them so long. Sebastian was practically carrying Glacine, but I couldn't understand why. Sebastian was the one that was injured, not Glacine. I ushered Sebastian over to the medicine pile while Minos checked Glacine over. We couldn't have any of us getting sick, after all. "What happened?"
"We found Mustang. RIP jerk," he spat at me. I assumed he was calling Mustang a jerk and not me, and he went into detail. "I threw my spear at him. He stabbed me with it. I killed him. Just patch me up!" He seemed frustrated, and understandably so. An outer District kid had managed to hurt him.
"All right, all right," I replied, trying to look reassuring. I had no idea what I was doing with all of the medicine we had. It didn't come with instructions, so all I could do was apply it and hope for the best. I was happy it had labels, since I probably would've killed Sebastian otherwise. I put on some disinfectant and tried to find something that would help it heal faster. "Minos, where are the healing creams?" I yelled across the Cornucopia.
"They're at the bottom of the pile!" he replied without looking up from his work. I dug into our pile and found the creams I was looking for. Which one to use? There were two bottles of cream, and while they looked different, their titles were the same. I didn't know what ingredients did what, so I just picked one and put it on Sebastian. He didn't instantly die, so I didn't fail horribly. I wrapped some bandages around the wound and stepped back, seeing it he was fine.
"Thanks," he muttered at me before going off towards Glacine. She sat beside him and they started to talk. He leaned towards her and she leaned towards him until they were touching. Minos and I exchanged knowing glances and turned to leave them be. Minos grabbed a spear and kept watch while I turned to my drawing of my mom.
My mom got me into this mess, and while I could resent her for it, I didn't. I hadn't gotten the worst of the Games yet, but I thought I might be able to last through them. It was a stupid thing to think, since all of the Careers thought that way, but some of them were right. I could only hope that my mom was right about me. While I didn't hate her, I wished I hadn't brought a picture of her into the Arena. My notebook, once full of drawings, had been reduced to one page when I brought it in. I got to choose a picture. I chose my mother, but I would've done anything to have been able to see the forest again. I was in a swamp, but it wasn't nearly the same. My forest was gorgeous. These tree patches were just... there.
After a while, I realized that I could do something to see the forest again. While I always made myself think that I could make it, the back of my mind always said otherwise. I didn't have to give up hope. It was clear that Sebastian and Glacine were planning something, and I went over to Minos. "Hey. What do you think they're talking about?"
"I don't know. They're probably thinking about how it has to be one of their final chances at some things and they may as well do them."
I shook my head. "There's no way Sebastian would get that distracted from being Victor. Glacine, maybe, but not Sebastian. They're planning."
Minos shushed me but nodded. "Yeah. We should plan too," he whispered. "When the break-up happens, which I hope is a long ways away, I was thinking that we could stay together. I don't want to team up with those two. I think you and I could work well together. That's what you wanted to ask about, right?"
"Yeah. Don't ever let it slip to Sebastian, though. He'd kill you in a heartbeat if he thought you weren't loyal," I replied, a bit worried. It was pretty early to be planning for the split, but we had to do it sometime. The earlier we started, the more time we had to perfect our plan. I looked up to see that Sebastian was still only concerned with Glacine and himself, and sat down. "Do you still have your frog?"
Minos nodded and pointed out his frog. "What did you think I was guarding?" I just laughed and shook my head. He offered me his frog and I politely declined. He could keep that. I was just happy to have a better ally.
Smudge Kells (D12F)
Leading wasn't all that hard. Dove seemed to think it was this extremely difficult thing that would result in death if you took one wrong step. While I didn't think leading was too easy, since it was dangerous, it wasn't much. If I slipped I could just catch myself. I almost died when I went past a bunch of the weird curling plants, but I managed to catch myself on the tree branches. Dove seemed awed that I didn't fall, but I did. I just grabbed onto a branch before I slipped very far.
Dove seemed worried, but that was nothing new. Everyone was worried in the Games. I stopped for a second and grabbed our bag, rummaging through it. We were running low on food. We needed some more. Dove kept catching fish and throwing them away, and I couldn't understand why we didn't just eat the fish. All the same, I accepted her wisdom and stuck to just gathering berries. When I stopped Dove stopped too, and both of us separated for a bit to gather berries.
I didn't like being away from Dove. It seemed like inviting danger. That being said, I wanted to gather things as quickly as possible. I was always extremely tense whenever I reached down to grab something. If a branch cracked I might fall straight out of my tree. There was noise everywhere in the swamp, but I could still tell when something was different. Dove could probably do it better, but I could do it well enough.
Something snapped behind me and I jumped slightly. Slightly happened to be just enough that I slipped off of my branch. Being near the water wasn't exactly my cup of tea, so I skittered as close to the tree trunk as possible. I couldn't see anything above me, but I wasn't going to take any chances, so I made my way to a different tree.
Watching the sky while making your way through a dangerous swamp turned out to be a terrible idea when I ran into a patch of plants. I stopped dead in my tracks as my hand barely skimmed one. It began to curl around me and I started screaming. "Dove! Dove help!"
There was no guarantee that Dove would hear me, but I always worked fast. She couldn't have gotten far. "Dove! Help me!" I kept screaming as the plant began to tighten. I took in a large breath, knowing it could well be my last. "DOVE!"
More branches rustled above me, but I couldn't tell what they were. I was gasping in air; the plant was tightening far faster than I remembered. Someone dropped down beside me, and while I could tell it was a girl, I couldn't tell who. My vision was getting fuzzy. I heard them stabbing the plant, but they quickly gave up. They grabbed my arms and pulled.
It felt like I was being torn apart. The plant had a good grip on me, but whoever was pulling did too. While the plant couldn't pull me away, it could keep me in place. However, the person was gaining distance. I could finally breathe again, and as I regained my energy I began to squirm. I couldn't do very much, being stuck in a plant, but my wiggling made the plant loosen up until I was finally out of its grip.
Now that I wasn't dying I could see who had saved me. "Dove!" I whispered as I got up. I could breathe, but I wasn't going to waste any breath on talking. She was crying and I realized that I was crying too. We climbed back into a tree and sat down, catching our breath. "Thank you."
Dove just nodded. She was still crying a little bit, and I crawled over to her, carefully holding myself tightly in the tree. "Why you cry?" It made sense to begin crying, but it had been a while. I didn't know why she hadn't calmed down.
"I thought I was going to lose you, too," she replied, trying to be calm. "I'll lose you sometime, but not yet. Not yet," she continued, now almost in a whisper. She went over to me and hugged me. I hugged her back, happy to be close to her again. My torso hurt when she grabbed it, but I didn't mind. I was just happy we were safe.
Giselle Parkfields (D7F)
As much as I hated abandoning Mustang, I knew I had to. There was no way he would let me stay. I figured if I tried to stay he would shove me out of the tree if necessary. I also knew that I couldn't take a Career. There was no guarantee that our attackers were Careers, but I couldn't think of anyone else who would throw a spear and then follow us. Most people thought they were too weak to fight someone, especially an alliance.
When the cannon fired, it became certain that we weren't an alliance any more. I hadn't seen Mustang die, but I couldn't hope that he had won. I heard the fight go on behind me. Mustang knew he was losing. I felt like I was going to cry and I wasn't certain why. I knew he had to die if I was to live. We weren't even that close. All the same, I was going to miss him. I was all alone in the Arena, and I'd had to survive like that. With the Careers on the hunt, that wasn't appealing.
My first plan for the Games had worked wonderfully until a point. I had holed up with Mustang and we were doing all fine and dandy until someone showed up and killed him. Now I had to think of something entirely new, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Making plans was actually pretty fun, but I didn't want to have to worry about something right then. I just wanted to relax for a while.
After I decided I was far enough away from the fight, I accepted my fate and began to work on my plan. I obviously still needed a shelter, so I got straight to work on making a one as well as I could. There were endless supplies in the Arena, so it didn't take too long. If I stayed in a tree I just had to make myself well-hidden.
While I worked on hiding my shelter, I realized that I could do something entirely different. Although I didn't know to make very many good traps, I knew what the traps looked like. With all of the branches around me, some of them could easily be replicated. I could just make it look like I was extremely dangerous to be around and hope everyone avoided me. I couldn't hide myself perfectly against the branches, so I might as well go for something that protected me in a different way.
I knew I was giving myself a lot of stuff to do to take my mind off of Mustang. I just didn't care. As long as I was working I could keep my mind on one track. That meant keeping my mind off of the fact that I was keeping my mind off of a fact. My shelter had to be perfect. While I wasn't a perfectionist, perfecting a shelter meant more time spent working. I could mourn later. Right then, I had to work.
