Lucy woke to grey light filtering through the sparse treetops, and sat up from the bed of bare pine needles a few feet from the blackened remains of last night's fire, her bow propped at her back.
She didn't remember moving from the tree.
Edmund stepped over her legs and dropped a dead rabbit on the other side of the ash heap, wiping a knife on his sleeve and leaving a brown stain.
"That was fast," said Caspian, coming in from the other side with a bundle of sticks under his arm. "Where on earth did you learn to throw like that?"
"Home."
Caspian raised an eyebrow as he crouched and unloaded the sticks on top of the ashes, setting them up against each other.
Lucy blinked and reoriented herself, suddenly wondering whether last night had even happened, but Caspian met her searching eyes before any audible question could leave her lips, and shot her a very small good-morning smile that answered whatever she might have asked.
"There's not a lot to do for fun in Six, okay?"
Caspian smirked and glanced from Lucy to Edmund. "Yeah, I bet you were real fun."
The boy flipped his knife easily and caught it again with the same hand, aiming its tip at Caspian. "I can have some fun with you, if you'd like."
"Or you could gut that thing and give us some breakfast."
Edmund glanced down at the rabbit, huge and tan—in fact it might have been a hare, though Lucy had never seen one before. "Unfortunately, you make a compelling argument."
Lucy struggled to her feet, pushing her tangled hair out of her face and squinting with a big stretch. "Don't mind me… I'm just gonna… make myself scarce for this part." She relaxed and motioned clumsily to the Hare. "Not a fan."
"Hey, how do you think I feel?" asked Edmund.
"Hungry?" She smiled sweetly and batted her lashes.
He conceded with an eye roll and slipped his knife into the carcass.
Lucy winced and turned away, searching the trees for something to occupy her mind as she worked her fingers through her hair with a great deal of effort. "Gosh," she muttered, pulling a matted lock over her face and squinting up as she tried to pull it apart. "This is a tragedy. How hard can it be to send a hairbrush down here? A comb, maybe? I'd settle for a sturdy pick."
"I've got a rabbit-sized rib cage, if you're patient," drawled Edmund, and she shot him an unimpressed look.
"I'm not that desperate."
He glanced at her hair like he wasn't too sure about that, but turned away before she could stick her tongue out at him.
She huffed and glanced at Caspian, who smiled.
For a second, she saw him again the way he'd looked last night, tearstains glistening in scattered moonlight as his warm, rough fingers tangled with hers, and something jumped in her chest. But Caspian just nodded to the woods, his strangely cheery composure unbroken. "If you're looking for something to do, there are some berry bushes that way."
"Thanks," she said, attempting to shake off her thoughts even as her fingers moved absently to brush the mockingjay pin still affixed to the lapel of her jacket. She stepped into the underbrush and made her way a few dozen yards into the trees, until she found one of the ever-so-common blackberry bushes and stripped it, filling her pockets as she realized too late that she hadn't brought a bag with her.
After last night, she probably shouldn't be thinking about sponsor gifts, anyway. Some contenders they'd proved themselves to be, not to mention they'd all but admitted they'd never actually met before the Games. Their whole story had come undone. Though she supposed it had been a long time since she'd fooled anyone into thinking she was victor material, anyway.
"You do know you're supposed to be killing us, not saving us, right?"
She turned around to head back to camp just as a faint ding rang overhead.
She paused. Cocked her head.
Again it came, softly, with a rustle of leaves. Ding.
She looked up into the overhanging boughs, almost afraid to guess, to hope, but there in the dim morning light, floating down to her through the branches, glinted a silver parachute.
She drew a sharp breath and reached up to catch it out of the air, a smooth silver cylinder about the size of a large thermos. The dinging stopped. And she stared.
Hesitantly, she twisted the top off, and with a laugh of delight, pulled out a pearly white hairbrush.
This can't be real.
She'd only just mentioned it, how had they sent it already? Why would they send it? How did they have the money to spend on such a frivolous thing? A week and a half into the Games everything would be ten times more expensive, this could have cost a fortune.
She glanced up into the trees and smiled for Polly and Digory, for whatever sponsor had demanded her wish be met.
Sponsor.
Buzzing with glee, she plopped down on the spot and set to work on her hair, brushing from the ends and working her way all the way up to the roots, a ritual she'd practiced every morning in her attic hideaway, and it felt achingly good now after so long without the most basic of comforts.
Her hair still frizzed as usual, but it fell around her shoulders in fiery curls now un-matted and smooth enough to run her fingers through without snagging.
She let out a sigh of happiness before standing and remembering the container at the last second, emptying her berry-filled pockets into the cylinder and filling it the rest of the way from the bushes before skipping back to camp.
Caspian and Edmund both looked up when she re-emerged, and she held the pearly brush up in triumph.
"What—" Edmund blinked. "Do hairbrushes grow on trees around here? No way did they just send you that."
Lucy just grinned past him to Caspian. "Looks like somebody thinks we've got a chance after all, so there."
"You mean somebody thinks you've got a chance."
"Is there a difference at this point?"
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth in spite of his halfhearted attempt to hide it, and Edmund glanced between them.
"I'm sorry, am I missing something?"
Caspian shrugged nonchalantly. "Don't look so surprised, you're not the only popular one here."
Edmund squinted. "Really though, her?"
"Watch it," Lucy leveled the brush at him, "Or I might not let you use this."
He scoffed. "I look fine."
This time it was Lucy's turn to raise an eyebrow at him, and he ran a hand through his hair.
She wrinkled her nose. "Now I'm definitely not letting you use it, it'll smell like rabbit entrails for a week."
"Will not."
She passed the brush to Caspian, and packed the berries up with the others while he worked through his own tangles. It had been a long time since his hair fell in glossy curtains to curl at his jaw and brush his shoulders.
Lucy stood on tiptoe to flip one of his lopsided bangs back to its right side, and when she plopped back down, she grinned.
"What?" he laughed.
"Nothing. You just look very pretty."
A wide grin split his face, and he handed the brush back to her. "You look very pretty yourself, Little Lady."
She'd almost forgotten what Edith had called them. "Caspian the Capitol darling, and his little lady."
Against all odds, the Capitol still seemed to agree.
"There's something very wrong with you two," said Edmund from the ground, and Lucy glanced over her shoulder.
"I'll take that as a compliment, coming from you."
He flicked a bone at her and she squealed in protest and jumped away.
They ate well that morning, once Caspian built a fire and Edmund finished skinning his kill, all in higher spirits now that they'd received a sponsor gift, however useless Edmund claimed it to be, and even he couldn't remain glum and grouchy after eating his fill of fresh meat for the first time in days.
Caspian might as well have been a different person, smiling more freely than he had since the Training Center, and Lucy couldn't help but find the feeling contagious.
They saved the leftovers along with the berries, and Lucy's backpack felt encouragingly heavier by the time they stamped out their fire and made their way to the western edge of the forest by mid-morning.
The flat grey expanse stretched out before them unchanged, cracked and sunbaked, and they shed their jackets as they stepped out onto it, Caspian's tunic still stained a pale brown where Lucy hadn't been able to get all the blood out, but the tears in its shoulder separated only to reveal white bandages beneath.
And with one last glance into the pine forest, they abandoned the shade of the trees and struck out toward the shape of hills in the distance.
The sun beat down on their shoulders.
Lucy thought briefly of their last excursion over open country, Jill jogging obstinately ahead, short hair bouncing over the backpack she'd struggled to shoulder.
Lucy hiked the bag higher onto her own back and pressed forward, away from any familiar part of the landscape, away from every path she'd taken so far, into the unknown western horizon.
Two or three hours later, they'd put the forest so far behind them that it looked little bigger than a thin dark line against the horizon, and ahead of them, what Lucy had taken at first to be hills now stood up very oddly against the sky, almost geometric, though certainly too low to be mountains.
"What do you suppose we're looking at?" she asked when they stopped for a drink, digging out a handful of berries from her bag as she squatted on the bright burning ground, no shelter for miles in any direction.
"I don't know," said Edmund, "But it doesn't look natural to me. Maybe coming this way wasn't a great idea after all."
Caspian paid him no heed, answering only Lucy. "We've seen a lot of ruins in this place, what's to say it's not another one of those?"
"It'd have to be a giant ruin," said Edmund.
"We've seen those too," put in Lucy around a mouthful of berries, unsticking her shirt from her back.
Edmund shook his head. "There are no giant ruins, they'd have to really be old to be ruins."
"Why shouldn't they be old?" asked Caspian. "You're saying you think they built the cathedral?"
"Well, they destroyed it, didn't they?"
"Destroying is always easier than building," said Lucy. "That doesn't prove anything."
"Whatever you say," muttered Edmund, though he sounded far from convinced, and they all straightened up or stood again and got back on the move.
The closer they came to the strange hills, the more and more convinced Lucy became that it really was some kind of ruined gargantuan structure.
Sharp squarish angles stood up harsh against the turquoise blue sky, like towers or turrets in such a state of destruction that they barely took an identifiable form, and by early afternoon several more shapes shone white in the sunlight, layer after layer of squared walls and blocky structures, like some kind of ancient sun-bleached settlement or city climbing up the slope of a gradual hill.
"I think it's a castle," said Caspian when they reached the outermost wall. "Or… used to be."
The stone towered several feet overhead, but it took only a few minutes to find a crumbling spot almost level with the ground where they could easily step through, climbing over rock nearly six feet thick into a desolate courtyard the size of a city block.
Sprigs of dry grass poked up through cracks near the edges of the otherwise empty expanse, bleached white as bone in the sun.
"I think you're right," breathed Lucy, gazing around. "This must have been giantish country, no human could live in a place like this."
Edmund's eyes bored into the back of her head, but she ignored him, instead walking across to the huge, gaping doorway cut into the opposite wall.
Any real wooden gate had now rotted away without a trace, the stone frame itself only two giant pillars standing on either side of the gap, though curved blocks which might once have made up an archway lay in heaps of rubble on either side.
Another massive space opened up beyond it, all flat on the southern side, but to the north the ground rose gradually in broken intervals, not unlike the giant stairways in the cathedral. Whatever had built those had likely built these, too. Perhaps they had even been part of the same… kingdom?
Caspian took the lead, climbing level after level and grasping Lucy's hand as she leapt up to balance along a tumbled wall at the edge of a wide passage, grinning down at him from her elevated walkway as if treading on stilts, their fingers interlacing without a thought in the brilliant sunlight.
She hopped down again when the wall ended and he caught her, climbing together up another flight of giant stairs onto a weather worn landing.
Lucy glanced back down over their path as Edmund caught up, and sprawling out behind them lay the shapes of giant rooms like a map, the crumbling walls (or the places where walls should have been) casting rigid shadows in the sunlight, much clearer from above.
"Not a bad place to hide," said Edmund. "You can see everything around for miles."
"Still think we shouldn't have come this way?" asked Lucy.
He shot her a dry look. "I suppose we'll have to see, yet. Could be something nasty around any corner."
She rolled her eyes, and the three of them split up in search of a water source, hoping to catch a glimpse of a river or a well in this parched desert of a ruin, climbing over low walls and glancing around corners, jogging across vast stretches of flat stone, hewn straight out of the hillside. They all kept roughly within view of each other, and Lucy caught Caspian gazing out over the landscape from the flat perch of a leveled tower, looking very tiny against the colossal stonework.
Edmund clambered up to the next level, and several fruitless minutes passed in which Lucy almost gave up and suggested they find some shade and rest for a while, but just before she could get the words out, a clatter and a shout erupted above her, and a girl's sharp cry cut off with a thump.
Lucy's heart skipped a beat.
She bolted for the steps, launched herself up to the next level and shrugged the bow from her shoulder as she burst around the blind corner into a wide, flat passage.
Another cry choked clear in the open air as the scene struck her, and Edmund surged up to his knees to grab a girl as she clawed her way toward a spear on the sunbaked ground, dragging her back with a strength that threw her smack against the stone.
Her head snapped back in a splay of dark curls and in an instant Lucy recognized her.
Aravis.
Edmund caught her hand before she could claw at his face, pinned her thighs down with one leg, and whipped a knife out from his belt, blade flashing in the sunlight.
"Stop!" Lucy cried.
Edmund's head snapped up, and in that split second Aravis struck him in the throat, grabbed his hair and yanked him off, flipping him onto his back with the momentum and grappling the knife from his hand.
Lucy snatched an arrow from her quiver and strung it in a single motion.
Aravis stiffened at the telltale stretch as the string pulled taught, freezing with the knife poised directly above Edmund's throat.
"Shoot her," he coughed, rasping in another breath. "Just shoot her!"
But Lucy's grip only tightened, heart pounding, and several moments later she motioned stiffly with the bow just as Caspian ran up from behind and halted sharply beside her, sword drawn in his hand.
"Get up," she ordered, and Aravis pierced her with sharp brown eyes, defiance dripping from her gaze and rooting her to the ground as if she were about to plunge the knife into Edmund's throat anyway and take the consequences as they came.
For a moment Lucy feared she would do exactly that. But at last, reluctantly, she stood, tracking Lucy as she straightened slowly to her full height, stance wide and powerful under the poise of sturdy, broad shoulders, just as dangerous as she'd looked in the Training Center, and Lucy felt suddenly small even though she stood a good few inches taller than the girl.
Tight coils of black hair fell thick over her eyes, framing her face like a wild halo, and two long scabs carved their way down the side of her chin which had not been there before the arena.
"Drop it," commanded Lucy, eyes flicking to the knife.
Aravis clutched it tighter for a second, then tossed it to the side as if in challenge, as if watching to see what she would do next, calculating so unwaveringly that Lucy almost forgot who was threatening who.
"What are you doing?" breathed Caspian in Lucy's ear as Edmund struggled to his feet and snatched up his knife, stooping to grasp the rough-hewn spear, too, which Aravis must have attacked him with. It looked like she'd made it herself, little more than a branch lashed to a wedge of sharpened shale.
Lucy stared down her arrow-shaft at the girl, scrambling internally to compensate for yet another rash impulse. But then it struck her, clear as day, as if it had been her intention from the beginning. "We could use her."
"What?" spat Edmund, "Use her? Are you out of your mind?"
"I think a temporary alliance could be mutually beneficial," said Lucy coolly, like she'd actually thought it out; and for a moment she almost thought she had, the whole image flashing into her head with brilliant, blinding clarity, confidence surging into her chest as if it had been lying in wait ever since she first took notice of the girl in training, harsh words ricocheting off concrete walls as if her fire could have brought them down.
"Hah! No."
"Lucy," said Caspian, tone forced, weary in a way that made her think he'd just rolled his eyes.
"What?"
"Are we going to ally with half the arena?"
"It's not half the arena!"
"It's been nearly a quarter, and I really don't think this is—"
"You don't know what it is," said Lucy, tearing her gaze from Aravis to glance up at him, "Because I haven't finished."
Caspian's mouth flattened into a line, but at last he sighed and waved for her to continue.
Edmund crossed his arms, challenging her to say anything remotely coherent.
"You said you wanted to take on the careers," she said, nodding to Edmund.
He opened his mouth to argue, but she continued.
"You said so just yesterday, and we can't do that with only three of us."
"Why can't we?"
Lucy shook her head, eyes flicking instead to Aravis. "How long have you been in this area?"
"Don't bother trying to hire a guide," rasped the girl, voice laced with the same rough molasses defense that stabbed from her eyes. "If you're asking me to ally with that thing…" Her glare shifted to Edmund. "Just shoot me now."
Lucy breathed a deep, belabored sigh. "Hey, I was right last time, wasn't I? Neither of you liked it then, but I was right, and— well, we're still here, aren't we?"
"No offense, Ed," said Caspian, "But I really don't need a repeat of you."
"No, I agree, one fluke of an alliance is plenty, it's hard enough putting up with the two of you as it is."
Lucy shot Edmund a look to say 'wow, thanks.'
He smiled back sardonically.
Aravis crossed her arms and glanced between Edmund and Caspian. "As amusing as it is to see you two together, I think I'd rather hurry up and finish this." Her dark eyes flicked to Lucy, to the arrow, as if daring her to fire, daring her to strike her target. Almost as if she knew she couldn't.
Frustration sputtered in her chest, grasping for the words to express this fresh certainty that had come over her out of nowhere, but before she even had time to betray her hesitation, Edmund spoke again.
"Yeah? And what about your little friend? Where's she?"
Aravis turned on him with such a sudden venom that Lucy almost let the arrow fly in surprise. "Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?"
Confusion flashed over Edmund's face before he snapped "Why should it be? Gosh, keep your shirt on."
Aravis scoffed and a fire blazed into her eyes as if she would devour him whole. "I knew you were a horrid bully, but by the Lion if you're not the most repulsive creature I've ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on, Edmund Alexander Warren—"
"Woah, okay," he snapped, "I'd say I'm flattered, but honestly I've never hated the sound of my own name more than I do at this exact second."
"Good, because I know another name, too. Lasaraleen Esma Bani, what do you think about that one, hm?"
"I haven't the foggiest idea what you're getting at."
"Oh, don't play coy with me, Warren, it's one thing to throw your own district partner away and torture her like the little demon you were in training, but out here you'd think she'd at least deserve a little respect, even from you. Unless you only like girls when their corpses still have more than half a face."
"So she's dead, then," said Caspian softly, and Aravis wheeled on him, eyes flashing.
"Did you all agree to play stupid or something?"
"We didn't know," said Lucy quickly, the tension going out of the bowstring as her aim fell, and the girl's eyes snapped to her next, reading her with dangerous scrutiny.
"What, can't you people even bother to glance up at the sky once in a while? Where've you been for the past week?"
"It's a bit of a long story."
The girl watched her, as if weighing the risk of believing her.
"Honestly," said Lucy, "We had no idea, Edmund had no idea."
"Don't defend him."
"Alright, fine, I won't." Lucy took a deep breath and held her gaze before venturing out again, cautiously. "It was the careers, wasn't it?"
The girl clenched her jaw and looked away. "Obviously."
Lucy breathed out, and silence thickened between them, heavier than speaking, heavier than shouting. For a moment she remembered the girls in training, Aravis gripping Lasaraleen's arm behind her back, holding her away from Edmund, comforting her after the fight, murmuring to her before the assessments. In some way, she'd cared for the girl, enough to form an alliance outside of her own district.
"Listen," said Lucy. "I know you don't like it, and I know you two don't either." She glanced between the boys. "But I don't think any of us stand a chance against that gang without one of our own."
For the first time, nobody shot her down, but the air tightened.
"Four is more than I've ever seen anyone try," she continued, "except for the careers themselves. It's no wonder they always win."
"That and they're trained killers," said Edmund flatly.
"Yeah, well, you're not so bad yourself."
He pursed his lips, unable to argue with something so closely resembling a compliment.
"And they've only got, what now, four of their own?"
"Five," said Aravis.
"What?" snapped Edmund, "Still?"
"They've only lost the District Four girl."
He rolled his eyes. "Ivy. Of course, it doesn't even help us."
"I just don't see why we need to fight," said Caspian. "We could always wait for them to dwindle a bit more."
Lucy shook her head. "There's no guarantee they will, and who's to say they'll dwindle before we do? Wouldn't it be better to face them sooner rather than later?"
For a moment she wondered if the morale boost from that morning's sponsor gift had touched her in the head. She hadn't felt this competitive since those few precious days in training when the Games had not yet become quite real, but still she couldn't shake the clarity that had rooted itself into her very core in a split second. They could do this. If they had Aravis, they had a chance. A chance to prove themselves as more than survivors by mere happenstance.
The sponsors wanted it. The sponsors wanted them.
Caspian bit the inside of his lip, and Edmund looked cross but said nothing. After a long stretch of silence, it was Aravis who spoke next.
"How do I know you're not just going to kill me in my sleep?" She shot a pointed look at Edmund.
"You don't," said Caspian. He met Lucy's eyes, begrudgingly siding with her in spite of his own hesitation. "But would you rather get rid of us first, or the careers?"
Aravis sneered, and Lucy couldn't tell if she didn't believe him, or if the reaction simply came from the word careers. She chewed on her tongue for a moment and surveyed them. "Do you have food?"
"Yes," said Lucy before Edmund could say no. "Some."
"I suppose that's better than nothing," said Aravis, reluctance dripping from her tone, too. "Just a couple days then. And if it doesn't work, I walk."
"If it doesn't work," said Edmund, "We're dead."
That was about the closest thing to a yes they were going to get from him.
"It's a deal then," said Lucy, ignoring everything but her own foolish, hopeful satisfaction as she slung her bow back over her shoulder, sheathed the arrow, and held out her hand.
Aravis eyed it as if it were some kind of rabid animal, not unlike Eustace had done all those days ago. Another alliance. Another world.
But at last, after looking Lucy up and down, and glancing warily between both boys multiple times, she stepped closer and took the outstretched hand. "Deal," she drawled. "And I'll take that food upfront."
Lucy let go and shrugged off her pack before anyone else could come up with an argument, pulling out a tin of berries and twisting the lid off.
Aravis took it, rolled one berry between her fingers, sniffed it, and popped it into her mouth before grabbing another handful.
"You wouldn't happen to have any water to go with that?" asked Lucy.
Aravis turned and stalked across the stone, down the passage without even attempting to take her spear back from Edmund, motioning over her shoulder for them to follow.
The lazy ease with which she turned her back to them struck Lucy with the sense that Aravis really didn't care whether she lived or died—that same reckless danger that had flickered in her eyes when she'd nearly sold her life to end Edmund's.
Lucy and Caspian glanced at each other, and Caspian shrugged, motioning for her to go first. "This was your idea."
She shot him a dry smile, but jogged to catch up to Aravis, and Caspian followed right on her heels, close enough to contradict his own air of annoyance.
Edmund filed after them last, still gripping the spear.
The sprawling castle ruins built ever-higher, turning down huge passageways bordered by half-intact walls that briefly hid the landscape from view, until they came up onto yet another level and navigated a series of crumbling gateways, ancient gardens, and shallow fountains, all dry as a bone.
At last, Aravis stopped in front of one of these gateways, outwardly no different from any of the others, marked only by two giant broken pillars jutting some fifteen feet into the sky; but inside sank a courtyard several steps lower than the surrounding area, and in the middle of this yard glittered a wide pool, reflection bouncing white and blinding off crumbling walls.
Aravis motioned them inside, and Edmund shot her a sharp, skeptical look as she munched on another berry.
"How do we know that's not poisoned?" he snapped. "How do we know anywhere you take us isn't dangerous?"
"This whole place is dangerous, sweetheart," drawled Aravis as she abandoned the gateway and stepped inside ahead of them. "You lot picked a hell of a place to holiday."
"Maybe you're on holiday," said Edmund, "The rest of us are actually trying to survive."
She forced an unconvincing smile. "We've all got our angles."
Lucy wondered what she meant by that, but the girl gave no hint at elaboration as she knelt beside the pool, cupped water into her hands and swallowed, droplets running down her front as she lounged back against the pool's far edge.
Lucy and Caspian needed no more convincing, approaching the near side where crystal clear water rippled several inches below the level of baking stone, and when Lucy knelt to fill her bottle, ice-cold relief plunged in around her fingers.
She gave a small gasp, and submerged her arm up to the elbow with a sigh, pulling her bottle out full as Caspian followed suit.
Edmund tossed the spear to the side and dug out his own bottle.
They all drank their fill of fresh springwater, impossibly cold in the sweltering air—it must have come up from much deeper inside the mountain—and then Lucy motioned for Caspian to let her check his shoulder.
"I'm fine," he scoffed, but she insisted, and he sighed as he unbuttoned his shirt just far enough to pull the shoulder down.
Aravis raised her eyebrows when Lucy peeled the bandage away to reveal the deep, scarring wounds, though they looked a great deal better than they had yesterday.
"What got you?"
Lucy dunked the undone bandages into the water and wrung them out again, pressing the makeshift washrag into Caspian's shoulder.
He winced and breathed out. "Dragon."
Lucy almost thought the girl sat up a little straighter, watching intently from across the pool.
"So, they were telling the truth, then."
"Who?" asked Lucy.
"The careers." Aravis sucked her thumb for a moment, wiping berry-juice fingers on her pant leg. "I heard them talking about a monster, when they all came crashing down into the valley."
"You were in the valley? The green one?"
She nodded once to the affirmative.
"We saw it," said Lucy, "but they'd already got a fire going down there by then. Must've been…" She counted on her fingers. "Three days ago?"
Aravis stared at her purple-stained nails, voice hard. "They killed Las five days ago."
Lucy pulled out a small strip of fresh bandages. "We… got stuck, for a while, underground." She glanced at the girl, who gave no reaction. "Couldn't see the sky, or hear the cannons. That's why we didn't know."
Silence answered.
Lucy finished treating Caspian's wound without another attempt at conversation before sitting down again and tucking her things away.
"Were there any more than those two?" asked Caspian at last, buttoning his tunic back up. "More than Ivy and Lasaraleen?"
"Nope."
Lucy sighed, recounting the list of remaining tributes they'd come up with a few days ago. "So… that makes… twelve."
"Half," said Edmund. "Half of us left."
Aravis glanced at Caspian. His shirt again covered his shoulder, but the bandages still peeked through slashes in the fabric. "I want to know about the dragon."
"Why?" asked Edmund. "It's not like it's any threat to you, we killed it."
"Wait," cut in Lucy as her mind caught up to her ears. "How do you know what a dragon is?"
Aravis shrugged. "Doesn't everyone?"
"Not anyone with sense," muttered Edmund.
Lucy opened her mouth, but closed it again. Perhaps it was silly to assume she was the only one who knew these things. After all, if Caspian knew fairytales, why shouldn't Aravis? And in any case, if they wanted information, they might as well start by offering some of their own.
Her stomach turned at the memory, the dragon's rough, spiny edges invading her bubble of confidence and prickling inside her organs. "It was big, black, scaly… It felt old, I suppose… ragged, almost decrepit, but fast. Really fast."
The horror of its unnatural motion crept again through her veins.
"Did it breathe fire?"
"Yes… more like fuel, though, it was liquid, burning and smoking and all."
Aravis' lips twitched in a faint smile of intrigue, and Lucy couldn't tell if she even believed the story.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well, they're legends. It's funny to find one here. Never heard of a living dragon before."
"Dragon's aren't real," snapped Edmund, "I wish everyone would stop playing this game, it was obviously a mutt."
Aravis just grinned wryly. "You think so?"
"Yes, logically it would have to be. Maybe they designed it to look like a dragon, just like your deathwater, and your precious giant ruins."
"Well, I've been thinking," said Caspian.
"Oh, great," muttered Edmund, "this'll clear everything up."
Caspian ignored him. "I've been thinking about it since yesterday. That dragon's wings were slashed, clean through. I saw them, the cuts were identical on both sides. Purposeful."
"So?" asked Edmund. "The Gamemakers slashed its wings, then. Stranded it on the ground with us, like the true gentlemen they are."
"But if they wanted to strand it," said Caspian, "why wouldn't they make a dragon without wings? If it was just a mutt, like you say, couldn't they have designed it however they wanted?"
Edmund pursed his lips, and something leapt inside Lucy's chest.
"What I'm saying is, what if the Capitol didn't breed it in their labs? What if they caught it somewhere and disabled it to suit their purposes? A wild dragon? A real dragon?"
"That's ridiculous."
"No, think about it. What if they don't even make mutts in their labs? What if they just use magical creatures? What if they're not extinct at all? And if dragons are real, what's to stop Aslan being real?"
"Listen, I can put up with a lot, but I'm getting pretty tired of you two and your fairy stories."
"What's wrong with fairy stories?" cut in Aravis.
Edmund rubbed his temples with a groan. "And now there are three of you. What did I do to deserve this?"
"Would you like the list chronologically or alphabetically?"
"Oh, shut up."
Caspian chuckled under his breath, and Edmund glared at him.
"I hate you all."