"Can't kill... just have to settle for critically disfigure" - Love me? Like you do (SandCrystal)
***
TW: fighting (no major wounds or descriptions)
The young girl jolted awake at hearing a small moving sound in the snow, down under her tree and decided to check it out, after all, it's better to be cautious than to be dead.
It turned out to be just the wind playing pranks on the paranoid tribute, not something that was creeping up to kill her in her sleep. Yep, she was definitely paranoid.
But since the small girl was already wide awake, she got up and went to check on her traps before continuing on her path, following the flow of the river upwards, walking inside the freezing cold water in order not to be tracked down by her footprints in the snow.
She knew that walking in the water wasn't good for her feet and could possibly give the girl hypothermia, but she always made sure to stop every couple hundred miles and try to not let them get numb, choosing to not take her boots out to walk, ready to run at any given time.
Her plan was to get as far into the Arena as possible in order to locate the cameras. If her idea was going to work, she needed to know where they were, or at least most of them in the area she planned on sticking to.
The youngest tribute thought about the Games the day before and came to a conclusion that if the Capitol did not intervene too much, these should be on the longer side rather than the shorter, taking into consideration the number of dead people, size of the career pack and overall abilities of the tributes, which were all pointing to the same conclusion. Besides, for the looks of it so far, she could deduce that the Arena was also on the larger side.
In that scenario, she found herself in need of a meticulous plan to make her idea work, otherwise, it'd all be for nothing in the end.
Hence the reason the girl was walking around the Arena, trying to cover as much ground as she could, as quickly as possible.
***
Royce was focused in killing the careers - even though his success rate so far was non-existent -, needing to keep busy with something, a set goal in order not to lose hope and encouragement.
The boy really wanted to just go home soon and try to forget about the Games and what he'd already done and was planning on doing even more of: killing.
Being on the lookout for them made him realize how much of a self-absorbed prick you have to be to like the Games and the Capitol, finally totally comprehending Aria's point, when they used to discuss it during their late night training sessions.
He knew he wasn't going to kill Gian. Although the younger boy was in the career pack, he clearly did not belong, not having killed or fantasized about doing it to the others up to that point. He would let someone else do it instead. The boy was a killer, but there were some lines even he couldn't cross, at least, not just yet.
The older tribute envied his friend's sense of morality, hearing her go on and on about not being changed by the Games and those ass-suckers on the Capitol, not killing anyone and blah, blah, blah.
He just wished they could've met in better circumstances, or at least could be a little less close to each other. Don't get the tribute wrong, he loved his best friend and their close relationship, but if he had to kill the small girl, he didn't know if he could ever go back to what he once was, or forget. He'd probably just turn into another Villòn and drown his sorrows with booze. And that was if he could even do it.
The boy made his camp up in the mountains, in a secluded place where no one would think of going to snoop around, or so he hoped. And even though he spent most of his time hiding near the cornucopia to spy on the large group of tributes, the eighteen year old still slept on his camping site for safe keeping.
***
Gian was uncomfortable. He didn't want to talk about the horrible position they were in, being thrown into the Games, but that was all the careers ever seem to care about. The boy knew not to actually trust the pack, seeing they were just a bunch of backstabbing wankers, but he had no better option than to stick to them, at least until the final eight, and considering it already was the middle of day three and only five tributes were dead, that could take a while.
The young boy was sitting down, sharpening the tip of his spear, having offered to stand guard while the others went to check out the fire smoke they had seen earlier, claiming the need of a guard to look after their packs and extra weapons and food.
He now, slightly regretted not spending more time in the survival skills training stations, not really being able to do much of anything at the moment, except sharpen his spear and prepare the ground for their nightly fire.
***
Aria was sure the careers had seen her fire, but she had no other choice. If she didn't cook the animals she had caught the previous day, they'd spoil and she would lose three days-worth of perfectly good meat.
So, finally finding the courage within herself, the youngest tribute decided to go with her guts and do it before nightfall, when the fire would be much more obvious.
Putting to use her rapid lighting skills she'd picked up during training, the girl lit a small fire, only big enough to cook her meat as fast and effectively as possible, judging herself far enough from the careers that by the time they even got to the site, she'd be long gone.
It'd worked perfectly well, as the young tribute was already miles away when the group of four careers found the abandoned fire pit.
However, on her run to get as far away as she possibly could without growing exhausted and losing sight the river, the girl bumped with the female tribute of District Twelve and stared at her shocked, as both of them sat on the ground where they'd fallen.
From what she remembered, the other tribute was about fifteen years old and her name was something like Urtis. Or was is Urnis? She didn't quite know.
The older girl was quick to get on her feet and point a hunting knife at the youngest's throat.
Even though her position was threatening, the other tribute's eyes shone with fear and uncertainties about killing someone else, especially someone so young. And with that, the hand holding the knife to the tribute's throat trembled slightly.
Aria brought both of her arms up in a surrender motion, looking straight into the girl's eyes.
"Hey, hey. Urtis, right?" She asked, giving her best shot at the other's name.
The girl silently congratulated herself as the older tribute nodded.
"You don't have to kill me, you know? I won't kill you. That however, doesn't mean I will go down without a fight." The youngest girl stated, her eyes showing no fear - or any other emotion, for that matter - whatsoever.
With a swift nod, Urtis downed her knife to her arm's height, deciding to fight the younger girl instead.
From her perspective, the other tribute was so scrawny and small that she'd have absolutely no chance.
And how wrong she was, as the tribute pulled out her pair of boomerangs and in a quick motion, kicked her knife off her hands and stood in a defensive stance.
'If she wants a fight.' Aria thought, narrowing her eyes, 'I'll give her a fight alright.'
The two tributes dueled for a hot second, their weapons clanging against each other until the smaller - and faster - girl managed to drive a deep cut to the other's leg, not deep enough for her to bleed to death, but enough for her to fall to the ground and not get up again, giving the pointless fight up, surrendering.
The youngest tribute then, smoothly snatched a small pack that had fallen out of the older girl's backpack, without her seeming to notice it, and ran off again, hoping to lose any other tributes that had possibly heard the commotion.
After running in medium-high speed for a few minutes, the girl decided that she was at a good place to stop and camp out for the night, seeing as the sun was almost all the way down in the horizon.
She climbed the fullest tree she could find, for better coverage - in case the older girl decided to change her mind and come kill her - getting cozy in her sleeping bag before tying the rope down and realizing she had yet to check the small pack she stole.
As she opened the small bag, the young girl's eyes shone and she smiled, a real smile for the first time ever since entering that place. She would finally have a chance at getting further without having to kill her opponents. The pack contained a total of six star shaped shurikens, with already sharpened blades. The girl finally had her specialty weapon in hands and was able to now start acting on her complicated plan.
***
The older tribute walked back to his camp site after spending the whole day watching Gian sharpen his spear and pace around, using the time to make some ropes, in hope he could set up some traps later on.
Royce checked on his stuff before making sure his water was safe and drinking it, having one of the bottles filled with poison in case of an emergency.
He quickly ate a few strips of dried beef and gulped down a quarter of a bottle of water, ready to retire for the day, planning on setting the traps for the largest group in the morning.
His sleep was surprisingly peaceful and he dreamt about his home back in District Two, his friends, his older brother Troy and going back to his family, fantasizing about a nice post Games, PTSD-free life. He knew it would never happen, but the dream was his and it could be as unrealistic as he wished.
***
Gian was just waiting for the rest of the group to return so they could light a fire and have dinner before going to sleep to prepare for a long day of hunting the next morning.
He didn't have to wait for long after the sun started to go down as the obnoxiously loud group made their way out of the forest, hungry and tired of walking all day long.
"Yo, Mahooney. Tomorrow you're coming with. We need more people to track faster to find and kill some more tributes. We'll just set up some traps to guard the supplies." Kopre, the career pack's leader of sorts exclaimed, making his way towards the slightly younger boy, Fillipa and Paloma quick to agree as they jumped up to him, the two girls laughing together as real friends.
Not that they were actually friends, but until they died, I mean, sure, why not?
The tribute nodded and went back to work, getting started on the fire and instructing the rest of the group to go pick something to cook and set up some logs on the floor to serve as seats.
Soon, the career pack was stuffed and decided to get some sleep, always keeping up the guard rotation during the night, their camp being way too big and too obvious for them to be completely careless and stupid about it.
The anthem played in the sky, but showed no deaths for the day, a good thing for the tributes and a boring thing for the Capitol.
"Goodnight." The boy mumbled to the sky, thinking about his parents at home.
***
Meanwhile, in the middle of the forest, Aria's eyes were almost closing.
"Goodnight." She mumbled to whoever wanted to hear, falling into a deep sleep, together with both boys, each in their own place, but all trapped inside that same giant and deadly Arena, closer than ever.
___
Hey peopleee. This chapter was more of filler one, kinda, cause it did have some important stuff going on, like Aria sticking to her morals and refusing to kill that girl and her getting her shurikens, which will be important later on. As you could see, I do make the story in different point of views, but they're almost never happening at the same time, being follow ups (I hope you could understand what I meant here, even though I pretty much cannot understand it myself - *nervously laughs*).
Today's song recommendation is 'Mirrors', by Niall Horan, because it's just an amazing song. On a different note, so, today I had this huge 5-hour test and I'm completely drained, I mean, my brain's slightly fried after answering to ninety questions, twenty of them being math. The gif is how I imagine Aria being with her boomerangs and shurikens (them being kind of like her play toys). Anyways... see you tomorrow. I love you all ;)
And may the odds be ever in your favor. Bye!