Yo! Here I am! So, biiig news: school has officially been closed. Coronavirus, Covid-19, of course. Now, I am worried about it, everybody is, I'm not taking it lightly, you should know that, but meanwhile I'll have more time to write fanfiction and… naturally… revise. But there we are, it's not a holiday. It's a quarantine. So work and all that continues as (almost) normal.

This chapter is really short, by the way, only about 1100 words long, sorry. But the next one will be better. Of course, THANK YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUU for your reviews, Dragonnetic, Ai Huiyuan, Madhatter, YOU ALL MAKE MY DAY! When I can't reply, I'm sorry, I sometimes don't have time but I LOVE YOUR REVIEWS I LOVE YOU ALL THANK YOU!

Now, I own… nothing. And with that said, enjoy!

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Adrift on an icy sea

Eragon hauled himself to the top of his slippery perch and looked back towards the forest. The mutts still stood there, snapping and snarling and thrashing their heads around, flinging strings of drool into the water. Two of them had leapt off the shore and into the sea, and were writhing around, sinking before Eragon's very eyes. As he watched, their fur became waterlogged, dragging them down, and their heads sank beneath the surface. The last he saw of them was a flash of white fangs. And then nothing.

Eragon tore his eyes from the gruesome sight and twisted around, rising into a low crouch, as he searched for Katniss. He saw her a little way away, clinging to another lump of ice, the rucksack on her back along with her bow and quiver of arrows.

"Are you all right?" he shouted to her. She nodded, and replied, "Do you think you can jump from there to here, or do you want me to come over to you?"

He considered that for a moment. He was a lot stronger and more agile than Katniss, but his broken ribs complicated the matter. Still, he figured it would be less dangerous for him to jump than for her. He got to his feet, tensed his muscles, and leapt, flying over the choppy white sea.

Eragon only just made it onto Katniss's ice island. He hit the edge of it and his feet splashed into the water. Barzûl, that cold; it was worse than any he'd known before. He wrenched them out and slithered up onto the wet ice, Blödhslytha at his waist slipping and clanking against it.

"You alright?" Katniss said as she took his arm and helped him into a safe position.

"Fine," he gasped out through chattering teeth. "Never been better." Now that they were no longer in any immediate danger, he could take in the situation. The island they were sitting on was quite big, about four meters long and three wide, but bumpy and uneven. It was drifting further from the forest with every passing moment, borne on the wild sea. The wolf-mutts were watching them get away with frustration burning in their dirty yellow eyes.

"Well," Katniss noted with her usual dry sarcasm, "that was a close thing. Any longer than that and they would have torn us into little pieces… But what is it they say, again? Out of the frying pan and into the fire?" She shivered in the cold air, despite her thick layers of insulating clothing, and gazed out at the stormy seascape. "This is about as far from a fire as you can get, so I guess we're safe."

"I certainly hope so," said Eragon. "Shouldn't we be paddling or something? To get closer to the shore? I don't want to meet those mutts again, but I definitely don't want to be caught in the middle of a sea of freezing water when the Gamemakers decide to melt the ice we're sitting on."

"Yeah, and what do you want to paddle with?" asked Katniss. "Your sword?"

Eragon slumped down, defeated. "We're in the hands of fate now, then."

She didn't reply.

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A few hours later, the sun began to spill its golden rays across the water, gilding the edges of the waves and warming Eragon and Katniss, but only very faintly. As time passed, it rose higher into the pale pink sky, casting long blue shadows on the lumpy ice. Eragon tilted his face towards it and closed his eyes. If only they had a fire…

"I'm hungry," said Katniss, rifling through the rucksack which she'd set down next to her. She held out something small and flat to him. "Biscuit?"

"Thanks," said Eragon, taking it and biting into it. "But it'd be good if we had something a little more filling." That gave him an idea. He looked up into the pale sky and said, "Haymitch, a bit of food wouldn't hurt. I want a bucket of stew, a bottle of wine and three loaves of freshly-baked bread."

"Do you really think he's going to send in all that?" Katniss asked dryly. Eragon grinned. "I doubt it, but anything's possible, right?"

When the parachute came, it drifted out towards the water. Eragon had to lean over the edge of the island and hold out Blödhslytha as far as it would go, and only just managed to snag the silver fabric on the tip of the blade. He hauled it back in and laid it on the ice. Katniss tore it open eagerly.

In the parachute were two rolls of bread dotted with small, pearl-like seeds, a packet of some kind of dried meat and another of dried fruit, raisins and pears and apples and the like. The was also a small – tiny, in fact – white tube containing a sort of paste. Eragon squeezed a dollop onto his glove and sniffed it curiously, wondering what it was for and whether it was edible. When Katniss saw it, she gasped.

"Don't waste it!" she cried, snatching the tube from him. "That must have cost a fortune. It's bone-fixing gel. No wonder it's so tiny: on the first day of the Games that would have still cost the earth. Its price must have quadrupled since." She was looking at the little thing with an almost religious awe. "You have brilliant sponsors."

"It could have been sent for you," Eragon pointed out.

"I don't have broken ribs, dummy," she shot back. "No, no, this is definitely yours. Here." She handed it back to him, and started seperating out the food.

They each ate a roll, relishing the puffy softness of the bread, and a few strips of the meat – it turned out to be a mix of beef and pork. Then they devoured the fruit, emptying the packet between them, and lay back. It was far from being a big meal, but after so long eating only biscuits and the occasional scrap of venison or rabbit, it felt wonderful.

A few minutes later, Eragon unscrewed the tube again and squeezed another pea-sized portion onto his finger. With his other hand, he pulled off the bandages covering his wounds, and sucked in an involuntary breath as he caught sight of the blood-streaked, torn mess that was his side. He even thought he could see a glint of broken bone in there.

Laying the soiled bandages aside, he cautiously touched the gel to the injuries and winced at the biting, burning, razor-sharp pain. With almost mechanical movements, he rubbed the cream into the flesh of his side, fighting the agony, knowing that afterwards he would no longer be in pain. Without being aware of it, he was breathing in ragged gasps, his breath coming laboured and effortfully. When he deemed that he'd smeared enough of the gel into his wounds, he opened his eyes – not realizing that he'd shut them – and heaved a great sigh of relief as the medicine kicked in and a blessed coolness spread through his body. Then he cut another square of bandage with Blödhslytha and stuck it over the injuries. And finally, when he'd packed everything away, he sat backwards and allowed himself a rest.

"Are you all right?" Katniss asked. "You seemed in a lot of pain there."

"I was," he said, "but I'm fine now. I feel good."

And they sat there together, not speaking, as the sun rose glitteringly over the vast expanse of water, as the stars faded from the sky, as the wolf-mutts returned beneath the arena, as the other tributes fought and were slain, as in the Control Room the Gamemakers devised new muttations, more ruthless ones, more savage ones, ones that would be able to follow Eragon both on land and through the sea.

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That's it! Finished! I don't have anything to say… so… please review, and goodbye! (See you soon, that is.)

:)