I know it's been a while, and I have absolutely no idea when I'll post the next chapter, but I'm not giving up on this story! It might just take me a while to finish. Thanks for sticking with it!
Chapter XIII: Hunting
The fighting is over, and now the Careers control the territory and the supplies around the Cornucopia. There's a break in the action where it seems to Sansa that everyone is going their own way. Most of the Careers are sorting through the supplies to find the best weapons they can. Theon already claimed the sole bow and quiver of arrows early on in the blood bath, leaving Jon to get by with the sword and knife he now carries. Not that Theon knows that Jon can shoot. As far as any of the Careers know, Jon has never handled a weapon before in his life.
Jon, meanwhile, is circling the Cornucopia in a wide arc at the edge of the clearing beyond the launch pads, his focus on the ground. Every so often he'll stop to examine something more closely, prodding at the dirt, looking back and forth and sometimes pacing off into the woods, following some sign that is all but invisible to Sansa from where she is gathering and organizing the haphazard pile of supplies from the Cornucopia with Myrcella.
Myrcella, though actually older than her by two months, has taken to following Sansa around like a lost puppy. The girl mostly keeps her eyes down, but when she briefly glances up, Sansa sees her glassy, wide-eyed expression and figures she must be in shock. So to give her something else to think about, Sansa assigns her the task of organizing all the bedding, tents, and shelter into one pile and the food into another. This is ostensibly what Sansa is doing as well, while also taking the opportunity to pack her and Jon's "getaway bags" as she's taken to calling them in her head.
She keeps busy and, like Myrcella, tries not to look at the bodies that are still scattered around the clearing.
Jon is the only one not preoccupied with their supply situation. He doesn't have to be. He trusts Sansa to do as they planned with Sandor, which is why she's stuffing two packs with a sleeping bag each, water flasks and purification tablets, rope, a first aid kit, dried fruits, nuts, and jerky, and anything else that may become necessary. She keeps her eye out for medicine, antibiotics and the like, but she hasn't seen any yet. It's unlikely the Cornucopia will have any though—the really valuable stuff like that is usually only given out by sponsors.
By the time Sansa and Myrcella have finished their task, Theon and Loras have settled their argument over who would take the second-best sword (Joffrey took the best), Asha has sharpened a wicked-looking axe to a fine edge, and Margaery has finished rooting out every last throwing knife she can find and concealing most of them in her clothes. They regroup in front of the Cornucopia.
"So, hunting?" Theon says, smiling as he fingers the bow.
Joffrey nods, a sneer twisting his handsome features. "Can't let the little rabbits get too far."
"Which way?" Asha spits on the ground. She's raring to go, itching to put her axe to use.
"Most of the tributes went into the woods," Sansa offers. "Only Renly went the other way, into the field."
Her contribution to the discussion is met with more than a few surprised looks. Theon is actually gaping at her.
Margaery raises a brow. "How do you know that, Sansa?" she asks, tone as unfailingly polite as always, as if it would never cross her mind to disregard anything a thirteen-year-old from District 12 has to say.
"I was watching. From the Cornucopia." Sansa had been a little worried about Jon's plan to keep her out of the initial bloodbath—what if the Careers thought she was hiding? But she'd found a way to spin things so that she could be useful, even though she didn't take part in the fighting.
Joffrey appears skeptical. "Are you sure about this, my dear?" he asks her, unable to keep the condescension out of his voice.
"Yes, I'm quite sure," Sansa states firmly. "They all went into the woods except Renly."
"She's right." Everyone turns to see Jon striding toward them. Finished with his sweep of the clearing, he's returned to join the debate. He steps up next to Loras as he continues, "The tracks enter the woods at four different points. Only one set of tracks goes into the field. We should head for the woods first—we're more likely to find other tributes there. There's a point where three sets of tracks enter. I suggest we start by following that trail."
Now Theon is gaping at Jon instead of Sansa, as is just about everyone else.
"If we're going, we best go now, while we still have the light," Jon says, apparently oblivious to the other kids' stares.
There is a baffled silence for a moment as all the Careers take in what she and her brother have just laid out. Sansa can barely keep down a smile. Why do they think Jon got an eleven in training, anyway?
Finally Loras shrugs, as if simply accepting something he will never understand, and says to Jon, "So which way?"
Jon walks out a few paces with Loras and Joffrey to point out the trail and talk strategy while the others shoulder their packs and prepare to get underway. Sansa watches them while she closes up her pack, sees Loras's bemused admiration and Joffrey's seething envy as Jon points out that one set of tracks was clearly following the other two, which are moving side by side.
Sansa can't help it. She's proud of her brother for his ability to stump the Careers, who have been training for this moment for years. Sansa realizes then that Jon has been training far longer than any Career—his whole life, in fact, has been a kind of Hunger Games, only what Jon has been through is real, not simulated like all of this.
Joffrey sets Myrcella and Loras to guard the supplies, then heads off toward the woods, expecting everyone else to fall in step. Sansa follows with no small amount of trepidation. She's only been outside the fence of District 12 once, so she doesn't have a very good idea of what to expect. But now, as then, she's with Jon, who practically lives in the woods outside the fence.
She remembers very well that first and last expedition to the woods. Jon had wanted to show her where the medicinal plants she and Old Nan used grew, so that she could get them if there was a need. It was just her and Jon, a rarity since Sansa was usually at home with her mother and Jon almost never was. Sansa had been scared to be outside the fence, where all kinds of wild things lived, but it was also kind of…thrilling. Of course, it didn't hurt to know that she had nothing to fear with Jon by her side.
She had ruined it though, when Jon showed her the rabbit he'd caught in a snare. She'd never seen a live one up close before. The poor thing was in pain, its leg broken, and her heart had gone out to it. She just wanted to help it stop hurting.
Then Jon had killed it, buried a knife right in its heart, and that had shocked her to her core. She couldn't have said now why the sight caused her to burst into tears. She'd eaten so many of Jon's rabbits by then she couldn't have counted them, and she knew where they came from, but maybe she just hadn't realized.
In any case, Jon had panicked and taken her straight home. Her mother had been absolutely furious with him. It had been quite the scene—her mother's raised voice heaping admonishments on Jon's bowed head, ending with her banishing him from the house for several days. That was always her mother's go-to punishment for Jon after their father died. It had taken Sansa quite a while to realize that making him sleep outside was not the punishment. Jon loved being outdoors, after all. The punishment was being separated from his family, cast out, reminded that he was not really one of them.
Once Sansa had calmed down, she had felt ashamed of her reaction and had sought Jon out to apologize, though for some reason that had surprised him, as though he didn't understand why she was saying sorry to him.
A dead rabbit is nothing, though, compared to what she is faced with now.
She's trying not to look at them, but she can't help it. All the bodies from the bloodbath still litter the clearing. The Capitol's hovercraft won't come to pick them up until the Careers have gone, but the cannons have already fired. Eight shots for eight dead tributes. Mya from District 8 lies where Jon let her fall. The half-brother she never knew, Edric, is only a few yards away, his intestines strewn across the grass from the hole Asha opened in his belly. The others—Albar who also fell to Asha's ax, Harrion from District 6, Walder and Walda of 5—lie where they fell. It's almost surreal, the sight of the corpses on the red-soaked grass, but the smell of blood does not allow Sansa to believe it's a nightmare.
She walks past the body of the girl from District 6, Alys. She remembers watching Joffrey attacking her, but had turned her attention to Jon's fight with Renly and Loras rather than watch Joffrey kill the girl. Alys's jacket has been ripped open to her waist, exposing her thin torso. One of her breasts has been nearly severed, blood streaking her chest. A deep gash marks her lower belly, and there are red, congealing cuts covering the girl's face, arms and legs.
Trying to smother the fear and despair the sight inspires, Sansa tears her gaze away. She catches a glimpse of Joffrey's golden head as she does, and closes her eyes briefly against the sight. She doesn't want to think about what Joffrey did to Alys—what he is probably planning to do to her, should he get the chance. Sansa has faith that Jon won't let him have that chance.
Though Joffrey all but ignores the corpse of the girl he killed, he does not miss the next girl's body, lying far out, almost back at the metal plates they started on.
"Who is this?" he asks, prodding the body with the toe of his boot. "And who killed her? Were any of us out this far?"
"Jeyne, from District 3," says Margaery. "Sansa, did you happen to see who killed her?"
Sansa shakes her head. She'd been so focused on the bloodbath around the Cornucopia and tracking the kids running away that she had missed what had happened here.
"I don't see any blood," Asha observes.
"Because she was strangled," Jon says, and points to the girl's throat. It's ringed with purple bruises.
The group of them exchange glances with each other a moment, but no one offers any further explanation for how the girl was killed.
Finally Theon grins and says, "Looks like we're not the only dangerous ones in the arena. Look out, everyone."
Margaery giggles and a few others smile. When Joffrey turns away and motions them forward, the rest follow and they're off again into the woods.
Once they enter the cover of the forest, Jon moves up to take point, and no one argues, not even Joffrey. The others are talking and laughing, in high spirits somehow despite what they just went through, and hardly paying attention to what Jon is doing, in truth. But Sansa is watching him closely. He's several yards ahead of the rest, eyes trained on the path before him, nose to the ground, metaphorically speaking. If the noise the others are making bothers him, he doesn't show it, though he steps lightly and makes no sound himself. He's focused on his task, ignoring what's going on behind him. He hardly pauses, but sometimes bends down to look closer at something or feel the ground.
So this is Jon when he's hunting. Sansa's never seen her brother like this before, not really. She wonders if hunting for him is like healing is for her, like when she's faced with someone who needs her help and everything else just falls away into the background, unimportant until she has completed her task and done all she can for the other person. That feeling of calm, intense focus is something she's never found with anything else, not even embroidery. She thinks that Jon must be feeling that now. She hopes so. She doesn't want Jon to be thinking about what he's really doing, which is hunting down a group of children so that Joffrey's Career pack can kill them.
They follow the trail for more than an hour before Jon calls a halt and then paces off into the woods without explaining himself. Sansa can tell that Joffrey doesn't like that Jon just gave "orders" without so much as offering an explanation or asking permission. Sansa would have made a mental note to remind Jon at the earliest opportunity to act more deferential to Joffrey, but she's thoroughly sick of Joffrey's attitude herself by now, and she considers Jon the far more competent leader of the two anyway.
When Jon returns he has news. "The tracks split up here," he tells them, pointing out something on the ground. Sansa has no idea what Jon sees, as it all looks like a lot of mud and grass to her, but she nods anyway. "Two sets of tracks go that way, and the other set goes that way," Jon continues, helpfully pointing out the directions as he explains.
"So we follow the two moving together," Joffrey interrupts.
Jon hesitates, then says, "I would suggest the one going alone," he says.
Joffrey frowns. "Why? If we find two, we kill two and are that much closer to ending this. There's two of them and six of us. They can't possibly beat us."
Jon nods. "That's true, but we have to find them first. I'm not confident that we'll catch up with them before nightfall."
"So?" Joffrey spits, agitated that Jon is continuing to disagree with him. "We're hunting through the night tonight. You think we'll turn tail and scurry home just because it's dark out?" He sniggers.
Jon shakes his head. "We can go through the night if you want, but I can't track in the dark. I need to be able to see to pick up their trail. These two are moving quickly and steadily. Their tracks are even and spaced far apart. And they're moving toward the stream. If they enter the water, we'll lose them for sure."
"Stream, what stream? I don't see a stream," Joffrey scoffs.
Jon closes his eyes a moment, and Sansa can tell that he's trying to summon the patience to deal with Joffrey. "We're not close enough to the stream yet to see or hear it."
"How do you know there's a stream, then?" Theon's brows are drawn together in bemusement, as though all he hears coming out of Jon's mouth is gibberish.
"The slope of the land has been going down for a while now," Jon replies. "You can see the divots in the earth where erosion has made rivulets. And the soil is different here. Sandier, more moisture."
Sansa is, quite frankly, impressed. She had no idea that Jon knew all these things. She now has even less of an idea how it is that Jon only barely manages to pass his classes in school each year when he's so obviously smart. Well, he hardly ever has time to do homework, for one. And he has a tendency to fall asleep in class because he's too tired or hungry to pay proper attention. So the teachers don't like him because he never does his homework and sleeps through their classes, and also because he's a bastard, so sometimes they don't give him a fair shake... Okay, maybe it's not so much of a mystery why Jon has terrible grades.
Sansa pulls her attention back to the situation at hand, where Jon is still explaining himself. "The person that's alone is flagging. She's tired, not moving quickly. Her tracks are unevenly spaced and close together. She should be easy to catch up with. Then we can come back and pick up the trail of the other two and keep following it until we lose the light. We probably won't catch them today, but we'll have an idea where they're headed."
Picking off the slow and weak first, Sansa thinks. Jon is a hunter all right.
Joffrey is silent, just glaring at Jon for a moment. Sansa can tell by the angry gleam in his eyes and his obstinate scowl that he's not going to do what Jon has suggested.
"We'll go after the two that are together first," he says. "If they're strong like you say, then they're the ones we have to get. Who cares about some weakling girl on her own?"
And that's that. The whole group heads off down the slope with Jon in the lead again, and Sansa can't help feeling relieved. She knows that her brother must be right about this, and the two they're following are going to be hard to catch. That will probably mean that they won't find anyone today, which means no more killing for now.
Sure enough, after another two hours on the trail, they come to a stream. Jon leads them right up to the water's edge and stops.
"Where to now?" Joffrey demands, but Jon shakes his head.
"They went into the water," he says by way of explanation.
"So follow them!" Joffrey insists.
"There's no more trail to follow," Jon explains patiently. "You don't leave tracks in water."
Joffrey's face is a blotchy red from the exertion and heat of the day and from his anger. He opens his mouth to say something, but Jon cuts him off. "I'll look up and down the banks here to see if I can pick up their trail coming out of the water. Maybe they didn't go too far."
Joffrey finally gives Jon a curt nod and turns his back on him in dismissal. Jon disappears into the brush along the bank followed by Asha, while everyone else sits down for a rest. Sansa forces herself to eat something, though she doesn't feel hungry. The heat is starting to get to her, and hiking with a heavy pack is not something she's used to. She's never been athletic. She prefers to cook or sew, or even to visit the sick in their homes rather than run around with Arya and the boys. Well, she's paying for it now. Would it have killed her to play ball with her siblings a time or two?
No, but having sat it out might just kill her now.
She eventually kicks off her boots and wades into the stream to cool off. The cold water feels fantastic on her tired feet. She cups some in her palm, splashing it on the back of her neck and sighs in relief at the sensation of it trickling under her collar and down her back.
"This was a good idea, my lady."
Sansa startles at the sound of Joffrey's voice just behind her, then silently curses herself for letting him sneak up on her like that. When she turns to look at him though, it's with a smile.
"Doesn't it feel nice?" she says. "It's so hot today."
"Yes, it does indeed," Joffrey replies easily. "I suppose that this is the first time you've seen a brook like this, isn't it? Living in District Twelve all your life, all this must seem very…different to you." Though his words are polite, his tone is condescending. Sansa pretends not to notice and nods.
"I go to streams like this all the time," Joffrey continues. "My grandfather Tywin likes fishing, and I often go with him. I'm sure there are fish here. If there's a rod at the Cornucopia, I'll show you how it's done."
"That's very kind of you, Joff. I'd like that very much," Sansa says, though right now she's thinking of how Jon doesn't have a rod, but still manages to catch plenty of fish.
"My grandfather taught me all there is to it," Joffrey continues. "Where to cast the line, what to watch for a bite. And when you've got one, how to set the hook and reel it in. Life lessons, my grandfather calls it. I don't know what a fish is supposed to teach us about life though. They're pathetic, fish, but it is amusing to watch them flop about."
Sansa represses a shudder at Joffrey's sick smile, wishing she didn't know so well how a fish on a line must feel, desperate to get away.
In any other circumstance, Jon would probably feel relieved to leave this group of obnoxious children behind as he disappears into the undergrowth. They make too much noise for him to truly be an effective hunter; he's hardly spotted any game at all, the group having frightened everything off, though he's seen plenty of trails.
However, leaving the group to track down these two tributes means leaving Sansa alone with the others again, which he hates. His anxiety is not helped by the fact that Asha is following him, breathing down his neck as he pushes through the brush alongside the stream.
He looks back at her, eyebrow raised. "What are you doing?"
She shrugs, but her shoulders are tense. "Four eyes are better than two, right? And I'm sick to death of the rest of those morons. If I have to hear Margaery giggle at something Joff said one more time, I'm gonna let my axe do some talking."
Jon only shrugs in return. As if the real reason she's following him isn't to make sure he doesn't turn on them. Even so, he tells Asha what signs to look for, and they hike in silence for a time.
Jon pulls up a bit when he notices deer tracks, the first he's seen so far. He points out the trail to Asha, giving her a more practical example of what to look for in their search. Asha is more interested than he thought she'd be in the tracks.
"Why don't we forget about these two and go after the deer instead? Get some fresh meat," she suggests, and the idea is so ludicrous to Jon that it takes him a moment to realize that she's serious. She actually seems almost eager at the prospect of hunting down a deer.
Jon shakes his head. "We already have plenty of supplies; we don't need to kill a hundred pound deer. What would we even do with something that big? Would be a pain to haul it back to camp." Jon can see Asha's enthusiasm dim with every word he says. "Besides, these tracks aren't fresh. It would take hours if not days to track it down. And even if we did find it, we don't have anything to take it down with. Now if we had Theon and his bow, maybe—"
Asha snorts at that. "Theon would only be a liability on a hunt, not an asset. He couldn't keep quiet if his life depended on it, for one thing."
Jon looks at her askance. It's not the first denigrating thing he's heard her say about Theon. "He's your brother," Jon says simply, and Asha looks away.
"He still doesn't belong in here," Asha says, and this time Jon catches a note of something else, something more vulnerable in her voice.
They keep walking along the bank, leaving the deer trail behind. "I thought you both volunteered for this," Jon murmurs, not looking directly at the girl beside him. Sometimes it works on wild animals, pretending he's not looking at them so they let him get closer.
"More like voluntold," Asha mutters. "We were both training, yeah. But I'm seventeen; I was supposed to volunteer next year." She kicks a clod of dirt, sending it smashing against the trunk of a tree. "Four isn't like One and Two, where volunteers line up around the block to get reaped. We have maybe a couple a year. And it's not as common for girls. Some years we don't have any girl volunteers. So it's regimented. The trainers decide on who's going to volunteer each year. It's all figured out before the reaping." She scowls at a boulder in her path as she skirts around it. "I was the oldest girl in training this year, and the only one that had a brother in training too. So that was that."
"At least you had training," Jon says. He's not sure if he's saying this to make her feel better or what.
Asha doesn't seem to hear him. "When my idiot brother started training, I figured he'd never actually be a tribute. There were a few other hopefuls his age, and they were all better than him, so." Her voice is hard and tense. "Thought I wouldn't have to worry about him getting his fool self killed the way Rodrik and Maron did, trying to be a victor like our uncle."
Jon doesn't know what to say to that. He's never heard Asha say a kind word about her brother—he's never heard her say a kind word about anyone, for that matter—but he thinks that from the way she talks about him she must have felt something for him, once. She's not letting herself feel it now though.
They continue on in silence. Jon wonders but does not ask if Asha is hoping someone else kills her brother before she has to. If so, the odds are in her favor.
To give them both something else to focus on, Jon starts pointing out game trails. Asha is fascinated. "We do a lot of fishing in Four, but this is different," she says. "Fish don't leave tracks."
They trade fishing stories as they hop across the stream at a narrow point and head back up the opposite bank. Jon is fascinated by Asha's description of the open sea. He's never been on a boat before, never even seen one except for in pictures and propos.
They're forced to take off their boots and wade back across when they want to get back to the other side of the stream. The shallow, still pool they wade through is a haven for catfish. Jon manages to catch one with his bare hands. When he looks up, he sees Asha has caught one herself.
Asha gives him a smile as sharp as her axe. "You're not as useless as you look, Snow."
Sansa is relieved to discover that somehow, against all logic, going back up the hill is slightly easier than going down. It's still hard work though, and she has to be careful where she sets her feet to avoid stumbling, especially since they've turned so that the setting sun is in her eyes.
By now she's too tired to pay much attention to Jon or Joffrey or anything other than putting one foot in front of the other. After Jon and Asha were unable to pick up the trail of the two tributes they had been following, Joffrey had no choice but to double back and try to find the trail of the other girl again.
Joffrey, of course, is not doing the actual trail-finding. He's left that to Jon. Jon is not leading them back exactly the way they came though. When Theon pointed this out an hour ago, Joffrey had stopped the march and forced Jon to explain himself. Jon is pursuing a more direct route that would hopefully lead them back to cross the trail of the girl without having to retrace the twists and turns taken by the two they'd been tracking. Sansa thinks this plan rather clever, as they won't waste as much time retracing their steps. She's also impressed once again by Jon's ability and woodcraft, as she herself has no idea which direction the Cornucopia is even in, let alone the skill to cut across unfamiliar terrain to find a trail they crossed hours ago.
It had still taken Asha's support of Jon's plan though before Joffrey was convinced to follow it. Sansa wonders at Asha's sudden camaraderie with Jon where she had seemed to hate him before. Now she stalks along at his shoulder, not saying anything, but both seem to be at ease with the arrangement. Had Jon actually managed to make a friend? Sansa could have smiled at the thought if not for the fact that this is the Hunger Games, and there is no such thing as a friend in the arena.
As the sun creeps toward the horizon, Jon calls a halt. They all gather around him to hear his report.
"So, the good news is, I've picked up the girl's trail again," Jon says. Smiles go around the group; Theon even whoops and claps Jon on the back. "The bad news is that we're still at least an hour behind her," Jon continues. "We don't have that much daylight left. If we want to catch her, we'll have to be quick about it."
"Then we quicken our pace." Joffrey is grinning nastily. He must be glad that all this running around is finally about to pay off. They've been hunting all day and now there's a chance they might actually have something to show for it. Sansa now has a lot more sympathy for Jon on occasions when he comes back empty-handed from a hunt. To expend so much energy on something so vital, only to ultimately fail, is terribly disheartening.
Sansa bites back a groan as she heaves her pack back over her aching shoulders and they start off again, this time at a near-jog. She's not sure how she feels about finding this tribute. She knows that if they find her, the girl will die. But if they don't find her, Joffrey will be pissed and the Careers might lose faith in Jon's abilities, which would be worse. This girl is going to die whatever happens, Sansa tells herself. Better we find her now and keep faith with the Careers.
As the light fades and it becomes harder to see, their pace slows. Sansa is grateful for the break, but anxious that their chances of finding this tribute are dwindling. She takes an electric torch out of her pack and hands it to Jon, who accepts it with a nod of thanks. The others take the cue and get out their own torches before continuing on.
No more than ten minutes have passed though before Jon suddenly comes to a halt and snaps off his torch.
"What's going on?" Joffrey demands. "Why are we stopping?"
"Lower your voice," Jon murmurs. "And turn off your torches. She's just over the next ridge."
"How do you know that?" Though Asha's voice sounds as scathing as ever, she is also the first to follow Jon's suggestion and turn off her torch.
"She lit a fire," Jon replies.
"Where? I don't see it." Sansa can hear Theon shifting around, as though turning to look for a spark of light among the trees.
"She's behind the hill, so you can't see it. We're downwind from her though. I can smell the smoke."
"That little idiot," Joffrey hisses, and Sansa can practically hear the sneer in his voice. "Doesn't she know that lighting a fire is a dead giveaway? Why would she do such a stupid thing?"
"It's getting pretty cold," Margaery replies in a whisper. "If she didn't get away with warm clothing or a sleeping bag from the Cornucopia, it's probably not a very comfortable night for her."
"Whatever! Let's just get this done," Theon says, barely lowering his voice. "What's the plan, Joff?"
Sansa can hear Joffrey shift his weight, and though she cannot see him, she can feel his eyes on her.
"It goes like this," he begins, and Sansa has a terrible foreboding about the smile she hears in his voice.
So who do you think they're following? O_O
The Score [Brackets = deceased]
District 1: Joffrey and Myrcella Targaryen
District 2: Loras and Margaery Tyrell
District 3: Ramsay and [Jeyne] Bolton
District 4: Asha and Theon Greyjoy
District 5: [Walda and Walder Frey]
District 6: [Harrion and Alys Karstark]
District 7: Meera and Jojen Reed (I know I haven't named them yet, but I think you've probably guessed who by now. :)
District 8: [Mya Stone and Edric Storm]
District 9: Arianne and Trystane Martell
District 10: [Albar] and Myranda Royce
District 11: Renly and Shireen Baratheon
District 12: Jon Snow and Sansa Stark