Inevitable | PJO

Calypso

POV: Calypso

I knew I shouldn't love the arena, but I did.

There was a low circle in the middle where the horn was, then a perfect ring of eight mountains around it, then miles and miles of flat ice, then a gleaming deep sapphire sea. The ice shone and sparkled in the early-morning sun. We should be getting some sort of warmth now, but the sun didn't seem to give out heat. The catacombs, caves and tunnels glistened and glittered. It was beautiful, but someone with large, shiny weapons could be very close to us here. We wouldn't know.

Me and Leo hadn't known yesterday. We had wanted to get out of the Careers's way, but Leo and I had walked so slowly. We hadn't even considered where to sleep until it was almost pitch-black. We had headed over to a large cave in the mountainside, only to be met in the entrance with three grinning faces illuminated in Leo's firelight. Two boys and a girl. Three weapons had gleamed. I screamed and Leo pulled me away, we ran, but they had been effortlessly catching up, only lagging behind to savour their kill. But Leo dragged us into a cave with a very thin entrance and they lost us. We hadn't seen Jason and Piper inside until it was much too late to hide anywhere else. But they let us stay with them for last night. Piper had even shared her warm sleeping bag with me.

When I'd woken up so early this morning, I'd decided to repay them with breakfast. Leo had discovered that the ice and snow didn't melt in fire, so lighting one in the cave was ok.

I fished Leo's box of matches out of his pocket and struck one. The same one we had been using yesterday - you never know how long the Games will take. A few rags off one of my thinner jumpers caught fire, and the snow around it stopped the fire spreading. Perfect.

I dug around in my supplies. The water would be nicer slightly heated, so I slowly placed the skin in the flames. It didn't burn, but the tips of my fingers might when I was getting it back out. A few precious slices of uncooked meat were in my coat pocket, so I held them over the flames. It might be the only good breakfast we would get. There didn't look much along the lines of animals or plants here. The workshops I'd so meticulously taken at training suddenly seemed pretty useless.

The other boy, Jason, stirred slightly as I shuffled around the fire. I placed a slightly warm hand on his forehead to keep him asleep. He turned over and settled down, shivering in his coat on the hard ground. I'd had to take mine back off Leo when I got up. The cold was terrible.

When the meat looked cooked through, I arranged it into four small portions on the floor and gingerly covered my hand with my coat to get the water skin out of the pitiful fire. I tried it immediately when I found that it wasn't actually as warm as I thought it might be. The water was still cold, but nowhere near as bad as straight from the ground.

It was a bit pointless now to wait for them to wake up, so I took Jason's tiny knife from next to his face and waited in the entrance of the cave, feeling thankful that the coats are white. No-one appeared at all. It wasn't likely that they would, seen as there were 7 other mountains to choose from, not to mention that the Careers didn't openly hunt people in daylight. At a guess, the three from last night would be napping whilst the other - 2? - kept watch.

Leo woke up first.

"Hello sunshine!" He whispered brightly. "Is that breakfast you've so lovingly prepared for us all?"

"Yes it is!" I walked over and slapped his hands away from the meat. "Wait until Jason and Piper wake up first - they deserve it!"

"You're so bossy, Sunshine!" Leo yawned and stretched out. "Nice fire you got going there." He poked at it, despite my telling him he'd burn his fingers. "You burn your knickers in that?" He grinned, looking at the burnt strips of my jumper.