Chapter Twenty-Nine, The Waterfall

A warm wind softly blew some dried leaves inside of Silyah and Artemis's tent as the young man lying in it slowly opened his eyes after what had most likely been his first good night of sleep since the Games had started. The boy rolled on his side, realizing that his arm was now tangled up with Silyah's. Artemis raised an eyebrow, not remembering having her arm around his when they had both gotten to sleep.

"Silyah? Time to wake up," he said, gently shaking her shoulder.

The girl mumbled something inaudible and tried to move around only to be stopped by her arm, which was still under Artemis's. Yawning, she opened one of her eyes to see a raven-haired boy staring at her.

"Your snoring could have brought back the dead," stated Artemis, a mischievous grin playing across his lips.

Silyah caught a glimpse of their intertwined arms and retrieved her's back. "Hey, I don't snore!" She furrowed her brows. Did she? After all, she had never heard herself sleep.

Artemis's grin turned into his signature smirk. "What proofs do you have to support that statement?"

Silyah grunted.

"Grumpy in the morning, aren't you?"

The girl blinked. Had Artemis actually quoted something she had told him before? She sighed. "No… Of course not," she said, smiling despite the slight sarcasm in her voice.

"You know, combining such a smile with sarcasm only takes away the power of the said sarcasm."

Silyah shook her head slowly, letting go of a chuckle. Artemis was most definitely back in shape. "Well, I wish you good morning too, handsome." She knew what effects her last word would have on Artemis's mind and she was rather enjoying it.

The boy did his best to ignore her, as well as the burning feeling in his cheeks. "Shall we get some breakfast?"

"We might as well," answered the District 3 girl, sitting up and stretching her slightly creaky bones. "But first, we will have to pack everything up." She crawled out of her tent, greeted outside by a sweet gush of wind.

Artemis ran a hand though his hair as he followed Silyah, noticing that it had gotten quite ruffled up during the night.

After a deep breath, Silyah got to work, beginning by untying the bed sheet she had used as a roof from the trees to which it was attached. She folded and cleaned up every single one of her bed sheets as thoroughly as she could and tucked them in her coat's back pocket. She then gathered her spears while Artemis took care of the equipment he owned, as well as the bows and arrows.

"All set?" Silyah asked Artemis as she put her hips-long hair in a messy bun.

"Yes."

"Then, let's go," she said, pointing her thumb towards the left which, from where she stood, was away from the dreadful section of the river where the Second Bloodbath had occurred.

Artemis gave her a short nod. He was not too sure of where he was located in the arena, so he could not do much except follow Silyah, who only had a brief knowledge of where she was heading.

At one point, the young woman stopped, a wide smile spreading on her face. "Jackpot," she said, pointing to a small meadow-like area.

Artemis's stare followed her finger. It was aimed towards a tree filled with dark violet oval-shaped fruits.

"I know these, I've seen them in training," explained Silyah.

"We have them in the past too, you know," said Artemis in Gnommish, giving her a shy wink as he walked closer to the tree.

Silyah followed him, trying to get hold of a fruit, stretching her arm as high as she could. The closest branch was still too far from her. Stubbornly, she tried to jump… She was a few inches too short.

"Need help, miss?" asked Artemis, his smirk still playing across his lips.

Silyah sent the boy back his smug expression and lowered the tree's branch using one of her spears. The girl looked absolutely triumphant; up to date, this was her biggest victory against a tree.

Artemis almost looked impressed.

"Suit yourself," she said, wiggling the plum tree's branch in his direction.

Artemis was about to grab a fruit when Silyah let go of the branch. At first, her laughter filled the air, but it only lasted until a plum landed right on the top of her head.

Even thought it was an extremely rare occurrence, Artemis Fowl began to laugh.

Apparently, Silyah had no way of defeating a tree. The girl vaguely felt like kicking it, but the sound of Artemis's laughter prevented her to do so. He had such a nice laughter. I was a shame he barely used it. Shrugging off the fact that she was the source of his chuckling, Silyah bent down, picked up the plum that had attacked her and took a bite out of it.

"Oh, you killed it," murmured Artemis. "So brutal."

The girl rolled her eyes and kept on eating, the shadow of a smile at the corner of her lips betraying her amusement.

Artemis smirked once again, picking up a fallen plum. It had a rather stunning shade of purple; almost too nice to be natural, a like that flower Silyah had shown him… The aremèsia; that was how she had called it… Speaking of, Artemis could recognize the flower's smell in the air. He looked around, discovering about two dozens of them just beside the plum tree. Fresh dewdrops were dripping along their violet petals, leaving a faint foamy trail behind them… Interesting, thought Artemis, taking a few for further inspection.

"I think that we are close to waterfalls," mentioned Silyah, hearing the distant noise of water flowing nearby. "Do you want to go explore?"

"I don't see any better thing to do."

The young woman instructed Artemis to turn around and unzipped his backpack, putting two handfuls of plums in it before letting her ears guide her through the forest.

About ten meters away from the plum tree was indeed a waterfall. It was considerably smaller than the ones around the Cornucopia, being approximately five meters tall by seven meters wide. Artemis and Silyah were standing at the bottom of it, watching the water go down into a river.

"Do you mind if we stop here for a quick bath?" Silyah shivered of disgust, suddenly remembering the bug-filled bridge she had crossed with Silver and Novia. A bath would indeed be extremely welcomed after having crawled in insects, blood-covered snow and dirt.

"No, absolutely not. I might join in."

"Ahem… All right." Silyah gave Artemis a peculiar look. She did not particularly at peace with being underdressed, let alone the fact that Artemis would see her… And that she would see him… But now was certainly not the time to be shy.

Artemis smirked at her expression, mostly to hide the fact that thoughts similar to Silyah's were going through his mind. The boy then took his jacket off, the t-shirt underneath quickly following it.

Silyah's whole face turned the brightest red as she took off her own coat.

Artemis gave her a sideways glance, seeing her complexion. "Something wrong?"

The girl tried to avoid looking at him, not being used to this kind of situation. Nevertheless, she shook her head. "Nothing wrong, but don't you have any… shame, for lack of better words?"

"Shame?" Artemis raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who strips people and watch them sleep." Now it was clear that Silyah's face could not get any redder…

The girl walked to the edge of the river and took off her boots before reluctantly removing the rest of her clothing, stopping at her undergarments. Complete nudity was a line she was not willing to cross on television. The female tribute then looked behind her shoulder. "Are you coming?" Oh dear, this is such an awkward moment, she thought as she quickly turned around, realizing that the first time she ever saw a partially unclothed boy happened in an arena in which they were fighting to survive.

Artemis's face had taken the same shade as Silyah's despite the fact that he had also judged best to keep his undergarments on. "Do me a favor and do not come up with any witty comments," he told her as he walked closer to the river.

"Believe me, I won't." Silyah dipped one of her toes in the water. It was not freezing, but it was not particularly warm either. After she let her hair loose, she stepped in the river, hoping to quickly get used to its temperature.

Artemis was slightly more skeptical, standing on the rocks not too far from the shore.

"Let's go old man! If I can do it, so can you!" She smiled, trying to calm down her rapid heartbeat.

"Old man, am I now?" asked Artemis.

"You know what I mean, Mr. Twenty-first century," she replied in Gnommish as she walked to the waterfalls, dampening her hair under them.

"Need shampoo?" The question came from behind the girl.

She turned around in a fast movement, unexpectedly sending her hair straight towards Artemis's face. Silyah placed a hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

Taken aback, Artemis had fallen to his knees. A faint red line had appeared on his cheek. "I've never been slapped by hair before," he murmured.

Silyah got closer to him, wanting to help him up.

Artemis gave her a devilish grin, deliberately exaggerating his movements as he swam towards the girl, splashing a great deal of water on her.

"You did not!" laughed Silyah, cupping her hands to give him a taste of his own medicine, lightly pushing him in the process.

The water around them then formed a big wave as they moved and without any warning, the raven-haired boy disappeared under its surface.

At first, Silyah had expected him to get right back up… But he did not. "Artemis?" What is it with Artemis and water? wondered Silyah. The two phenomenon combined would somehow always end up with her worrying

Then, as she began to search for him, a hand took hold of a nearby rock, followed by another. Slowly, Artemis emerged from the river, his jet-black hair smoothed back by the water.

"Don't ever do that again," said Silyah, eyeing Artemis's grin.

Artemis chuckled, an unusual good feeling settling upon him. "Were you worried for me?" he asked. The girl had no time to answer, for Artemis had brought a hand up to her hair, sliding a flower between her locks. An aremèsia, to be exact…

A slightly confused Silyah brushed the flower with the tip of her fingers. Bubbly foam formed under the aremèsia. "Is that what you were referring to when you asked me about shampoo earlier?"

Artemis nodded. "Yes, after a brief study, I came upon the fact that those flowers had the same properties as soap, making them soap plants."

"Well, thank you," she said, heading back to the waterfall, washing her hair using the aremèsia as she tried without much success to comb through the tangles on her head.

Now that she was actually paying attention to herself, Silyah noticed that she was in a pretty bad shape. She had countless bruises and minor scratches, added to the fact that most of her body parts ached. She briefly wondered why she had not even realized it before, but was rather thankful that she had not.

Beside the girl, Artemis also took the opportunity to contemplate the damage the arena had caused him. He had awful, though healing wounds on his shoulder and temple, a swollen ankle and multiple contusions, all of which were signs of his fall down a rocky cliff. Taking an aremèsia as a bar of soap, the boy carefully washed his injured skin in the hopes of eventually looking a little less battered.

Harbor looked behind him; Silver was still at his chase, but he had now lost Zinque. The boy from 4 smirked. He could try to fight the tough girl on his own. He began to run a little more rapidly. Harbor's strategy was to exhaust Silver as much as possible before fighting her, but apparently, she was also a good runner so he would have to lead her even farther in the forest before she ran out of energy.

The red-haired boy had found the District 6 tribute when he had heard her battling with Caskar. As much as he would have enjoyed helping Silver taking the obnoxious boy down, Harbor had made the tactical decision of going after her instead. After all, Caskar had just been beaten up pretty badly by a girl, so there was no real advantage in killing him on the spot. In order to act like a victor, he had to eliminate the strongest tribute first. The only thing was that the tables had turned and now, she was the one at his pursuit.

Lost in his strategy, Harbor almost failed to see the blow dart that flew right by him. Distracted from his run, the young man tripped on a tree's root, falling down as Silver arrived behind him. Her blow cane was resting in her right hand and a brand new dart was in her left one.

Harbor quickly got back to his feet. There would be no more running from then on. The fight had begun. The boy looked around, searching for a weapon, or at least some type of shield; Silver had her blow cane, so he would have to find something that could be lethal in order to be on equal grounds with her. Harbor stopped his choice on a sturdy-looking branch and immediately ran in Silver's direction. His next move would be to rid the girl of her weapon.

Silver stood stoic in front of the District 4 boy as the hold she had on her cane began to tighten. Harbor hit the side of her arm with his branch. If only she could drop her weapon! It would be so much easier to kill her in hand-to-hand combat if she did so.

The District 6 girl gritted her teeth, but refused to let go of her cane no matter how hard Harbor would hit her with the branch. In a quick movement, she turned the end of her blow cane towards the boy, her new dart ready.

Now close enough to physically stop her, Harbor let go of his branch and grabbed Silver's upper arm between his hands. In one swift motion, the girl waved her blow cane in front of her, violently hitting Harbor on his nose. A thin line of blood ran down his face, dripping from his nostrils down to his chin. Harbor's reflexes took over his body, one of his hands letting go of Silver as it went to his broken, bleeding nose. The brown-haired girl thus took the opportunity offered to her and once again used her cane to hit her opponent, this time aiming at his armpit so that he would completely let her go. She then took another swing, hitting his stomach. Under the impact, the boy rolled on the ground, but did not take any break from the fight. He grabbed Silver's ankle and yanked on it, pulling her down. The District 6 girl's body hit the arena's soft soil, though she did not remain on the ground for too long.

Both of the opponents were now standing back up, panting in front of each other. Harbor wiped a film of blood from under his nose, rushing forward to punch Silver in the stomach. The girl crumbled down for a second time, gasping to catch her breath. She took a moment to block everything around her. Dying at this stage was not an option; she had come way too far to die now.

Harbor looked at Silver with a sly smile. He was waiting for her to get back up in order to get a better point of impact for his next punch.

Silver, on the other hand, looked at the ground, faking a horrible pain. With a quick glance upwards, she saw that Harbor was in a punching stance, his legs slightly apart to secure his balance. Acting as quickly as possible, the young woman slid on the ground and passed right through the space between the boy's feet. She had chosen this simple scheme for two reasons; the first one was that once she would get up, she would be able to attack Harbor from behind and the second one was that during her dive, she would have the opportunity to kick him right where it would hurt, which of course, she did with huge satisfaction.

Harbor completely froze after Silver's kick. "Argh!" he screamed. That was not fair play! Not at all!

Silver tightened her hold on her cane, bringing it in front of Harbor's neck as she placed her knee against the center of his spine.

Harbor's eyes went huge and his heart threatened to burst out of his chest when he finally realized what would be happening to him. His last impulse was to murmur a faint "goodbye," only meant for his family to hear.

Silver had not heard it. Had she, she might have had taken the decision to let Harbor live for another day. However, the girl moved her hands back rapidly, bringing the cane along with them. Harbor's neck gave away with a "snap," much like his spine, which Silver's knee had pushed forward.

Once she knew that Harbor was over with, Silver moved back, letting the District 4 boy fall to the ground.

That will teach him… thought Silver, already running away from her kill.