[.}ME--.against.the.--WORLD{.]

“You didn’t see the Games yesterday, did you?”
“I was sick, delirious, and laid up in bed, Maer. Of course not.”
“Turn the TV on early, then. You need to watch the recap.”
“Well, obviously.”
“No, I mean you really need to. You need to see the girl from District 11 in action. I was right- she is one of the girls we used to train with. Without all the makeup and fancy clothes, you can tell.”
“You’re insane. What self-respecting-”
“Be quiet! It’s starting! Hold on, wait for it... wait for it... There! There she is!”
“Oh. Oh- oh my god, you’re right! It’s Lalik!”
“I told y- wait, Lalik? That’s her name? Someone said Lalik was dead, though!”
“I know, but that’s her!”



Day Two

Midnight

Cadia awoke to the feeling of fur and claws on her arm.

She was too used to things like this to jerk upright or flail around, but her eyes did shoot open in surprise. She moved carefully, not wanting to startle whatever it was; it was in her sleeping bag, after all, and she didn’t want damage to her items, or herself. Slowly she used the arm that didn’t have a creature using it as a perch- her wounded arm, which unfortunately didn’t move quite as smoothly as she’d like- and unzipped the bag, then flipped the top half off of herself in one fluid motion.

It was a squirrel- not the squirrel-camera, a real one- and it appeared to be asleep. It must have shown up seeking warmth, and crawled in with her.

Too bad for it. Cadia’s sword was lodged in the tree near the junction of the trunk and the branch she was on; she’d put it there in case someone surprised her and she needed a weapon faster than she could get at the knives. She reached up and pulled it free now; taking careful aim, she slid the tip of the rapier in through the eye. The pain woke the squirrel, which squirmed until the blade sliced its brain and it died.

A fire in the tree was too dangerous, but so was eating the thing raw. Cadia pulled snow off the end of her branch and packed the squirrel, tucking it in the fork of another nearby branch. She would take it with her when she went down to the floor, and it would become breakfast when she deemed it time to eat; most people, she knew, ate soon after waking up, but then most people needed more sleep than Cadia did. By the darkness of her surroundings, she figured she'd only been asleep for about five hours, which was average for her but was not enough time for her to be hungry again after that last meal at the Capitol.

There were things she could do to fill in the time, though. She had been exhausted last night, and had taken no more time than was necessary to secure herself and her belongings, fill her water skin with snow, eat those eggs, and watch the faces in the sky before dropping off to sleep. She needed to fix up that arm and take inventory before moving on.

The arm first. Cadia sat up and pulled her legs into a cross-legged position before reaching over and pulling the first-aid kit into her lap. The makeshift bandage was removed carefully; it was difficult to pull off without wincing, because the blood had caked overnight, but she managed it, unwilling to show weakness in front of the cameras that were surely watching her. It was a typical kit, not good for anything major, but even though the wound was deep and a bit swollen it wasn’t infected, so Cadia merely used a piece of gauze and a bit of water (the snow in her canteen had melted overnight thanks to the heat of her body, though it was still cold) to clean out the dirt and blood before wrapping and tying a strip of bandage around it.

Inventory, then. There was no food in her belongings; she was counting on being able to get that herself. The same went for clothes; if she could find a deer or something, she’d be able to bring it down and use the skins to make warmer garments. In the meantime, she’d just have to keep on the constant move to make sure she didn’t freeze. Water was there, though, and it was one thing she couldn’t risk losing. She took a drink before setting the skin back at the bottom of the sleeping bag. The first aid kit joined it shortly; she would carry them in the bag when she went on the move.

Carrying weapons, though, would get tricky. There was a belt for the sword, but the sheaths for the throwing knives were merely loose in their case, which had to be opened to pull them out. That was unacceptable; even with the leather case in her hands, it would take far too long to get them out.

Cadia eyed the mass of snow that held the squirrel.

A few minutes later, it was no longer a squirrel, but a skillfully (and heartlessly) skinned corpse.

Ordinarily she would tan the hide, but she didn’t have time for that, so she just scrapped it clean and left it sitting while she whittled a needle out of a piece of pine. Thread, taken sparingly from the first aid kit, was used to bind strips of skin together, and before long she had secured the knives’ sheaths to the belt. She put it on; the weight wasn’t perfectly even, but it would suffice.

That problem was solved, then, and she was ready to go. As Cadia zipped the sleeping bag up, the zipper caught; she frowned and tugged on it, but there was fabric in the way. She reached down to fix the problem, and found...

... a jacket? When the heck had she grabbed that, and why?

It had probably gotten tangled in the sleeping bag during packing, she decided. Oh, well- she didn't need it, per se, but she certainly wasn't arguing either. You didn't argue with anything that might help you in any way, not in the arena. She shrugged in on; it was a size too big, but it fit well enough that it wouldn't get in her way, and besides, too big was better than too small.

In any case- back to the sleeping bag. She rolled it up with no more than a little difficulty from the added items, and strapped it to her back. The squirrel corpse, she regretfully left where it was; she wasn’t risking the scent of blood on her sleeping bag, and it was too slippery to hold while climbing. She should have skinned it on the floor- an oversight that she would not be repeating.

It was odd, but Cadia felt more at home here than she ever had during that past year in District Eleven. There had been a reason she'd spent so much time in the forest, and it wasn't because she was still on the run- though she was, to some extent, and always would have been if this hadn't happened. It was because after the destruction of the only safe environment she'd ever known, the forest had come to feel like home. Not because it was safe, or because she had any affection for it, but because it was familiar, and devoid of the people that she hated to interact with. She had grown used to the sounds of animals and wind whistling through the trees, and the way you had to step lightly; she had learned, had been forced to learn, how to kill. And, for that matter, how to create; she had perfected the snare that she had been taught since birth, and had figured out by trial and error the best way to clean and tan hides. Survival had become to her as shopping had been to some of the girls in her District; it had become second nature. It had become, even, a passtime, if you could call it that.

Her right arm was cut open to the bone, she was hungry, there were eighteen other people out there who'd love to kill her, and she was cold... and she couldn't be more content. She couldn't be happy, because after all this time she had become a stranger to that feeling, but she was as close to it as she could get.

She was home here.

With that thought in her mind, she set out into the slowly-brightening forest. Her right arm hung at her side, mostly useless; it was a really good thing she was left-handed, although she still wouldn't be at optimal condition. Both hands were not required to get food unless you were trying to bring down something especial dangerous, however, so she didn't worry too much about it as she made her way over the carpet of snow, needles, and twigs.

Though she wasn’t lucky enough to come in contact with anything for a long while, snares were easy to set; the supple branches of willow trees served nicely in place of the oaks she was used to working with, and the long, soft pine needles were even better for hiding the contraptions than regular leaves were. She was fortunate enough to stumble across some cranberries, creeping along on their low-growing vines; together with some reindeer moss, which was growing around her right and left, they took the place of that squirrel for breakfast. She managed to find another nest, as well, but as soon as as got near to the eggs the songbird guarding it turned aggressive and came at her with some sort of stinger. She was forced to drop from the tree; the bird followed her, and she brought it down with a well-aimed knife throw, but she lost the eggs, and when she opened it up there was next to no meat at all.

Bloody muttations. Ah, well; she’d take what she could get. A small fire served to smoke what little meat there was, as well as the entrails; the bird seemed to have eaten some berries that would be poisonous to her, so the intestines were buried under the snow and the stomach had to be cleaned out before she could tie off the ends and store water in it, but the dried meat was stored in one of her zippable jacket pockets, and the rest of the innards were safe to eat, which she did. The skin, she also buried; feathered hide wasn’t nearly as useful as fur, and it was much harder to work with. This accomplished, she put out the fire, covered the charcoal with snow, and spread the needles and leaves back over the area so that it once more looked natural.

It was time to get this show on the road.