Colin and Spark

Colin ran with her, tree branches smacking his face. He thought about offering to take the lead, before realizing that it probably wasn't the time for chivalry.

"We need to look for somewhere to stay. We have to stop eventually. And besides, I think I here a stream somewhere around here. It might be a good water and food source," He said, suddenly stopping and gently holding her back. "We can stop here, or we can try to make it up there. Your call."

Colin was surprisingly used to the sounds of the forest. Whenever his father had forced him to train, he'd snuck away into the gathering of trees by their home, climbing them and exploring what he could, maybe hoping to find a way out, maybe just for the sake of getting away. This...place they were in didn't seem natural, though. There were no birds singing, no sound of animals skittering around. Just absolute, desolate silence.

He unzipped the pack, placing down the water canteen he'd grabbed along with it, and began rifling through the pack. The bag hadn't been too close to him, about slightly over halfway between him and the Cornucopia. It would probably have some okay things in it.

"Let's see...four rolls of bread, two blankets, some bags, which I'm guessing are for food, and a hammer," He responded, a bit surprised at the last part. Yeah, a hammer was most commonly used as a tool, but it would almost certainly didn't be used as a weapon in this scenario. It was extremely unlikely that they would both be in possession of a weapon.

He filled the canteen with water, then followed her lead, covering his mousy brown hair with dirt and mud, washing off his heavily-bleeding wound with the icy cold water.

"So, what's the plan? Do we just wait here?" He asked her, sliding onto the icy ground next to her. "We should be safe for a night or two, but I don't want to spend too long in one place," The bitter cold was getting worse with every second, it seemed, and while he was sure he could stand it for a while, the gamemakers probably wouldn't make it too easy. Though he doubted they were paying much attention to him and Spark.

Colin noticed her tears, and quickly used the torn piece of cloth to wipe them away. "Sorry. Some of the water dripped on your face," He covered, giving her a sturdy and encouraging look.

He continued to wipe at his wound, wincing noticeably when the rag touched his skin. "I'll go gather some wood once we've set up. Food wise, we might be able to catch some things. I know maybe one or two traps from training, and there's bound to be some small fish. The careers will start moving soon, so we can take shifts at night," He suggested, running his hands through his hair.

"I'd say we ration out our food. The stuff we have now could last us a few days if we split it evenly."

OOC: Sorry for the short post! My brain's fried after school today. Stupid algebraic equations and inequalities.

OOC: Eesh, I feel you xD

BIC: "Yeah," she said in a whisper as he wiped her tears from her face. The gesture felt close and somewhat intimate -- it wasn't everyday she got her face touched by a stranger -- but she was honestly past the point of caring about her personal space. If somebody had done that three weeks ago, she would've stepped back, raised her eyebrows and asked what the hell that had been about. But now, she was just grateful Colin made up an excuse for her crying. Both knew why she was, but they also knew there was no way they could allow themselves to feel self-pity and victimize. That was just out of the picture.

"If the Careers are gonna move soon," Spark said, blowing her nose, "you'd better go gather some wood now. Or I gather wood and you set up traps, that way it's done quicker. We can't afford to run around getting stuff in the forest while they're on the move."

"I'll do traps, then. If anything happens, try to get high and...well, wait till its safe to come back, I guess." He told her. He gigured they should've come up with some type of signal, in case the other got into any trouble, but the sun seemed to be setting quickly, and setting traps in the dark wasn't a smart idea. "Could I see that rope?" He asked, looking out into some of the denser tree line a bit down the mountain

Colin set out towards the edge of the wooded area, making sure to not get too far or close to their camp. It took him a while, but he eventually found some saplings and some animal markings. He positioned a few snares in different areas, and when he wasn't setting possibly-deadly trap, he was attempting to stone a few birds (notice I said attempting). After a while, he gave up on it, watching the birds fly away.

On his way back to the camp, he tried to leave some not-so-obvious trail markings hinting towards the location of the traps: A rock and twig in a certain shape here and there, basically.

"Hey," He replied, thankful to see her. Had she died...Oh, God, what would he have done? He had a tendency to get protective and attached to people, not in a weird way, more like an older-sibling kind of way. Of course, the Games weren't a good place for that. In fact, it would probably get him killed.

"Did you find anything? Footprints, traps, things like that?" He asked as he brushed his hands off and sat next to her. It was right around late twilight, and the last shards of light had ceased to stabbing sky, slowly receding to reveal a navy blanket edged with blood-red.

In other words, it was almost dark and sunset was just ending.

"If there's signs of someone nearby, we might want to move. The more distance the careers have to cover, the less energy they'll have if they do find us," He suggested, looking down at her hand-made fire pit. It wasn't half bad. Then again, what did Colin know about fire pits?

OOC: Sorry for the delay ^.^ Btw, when are the sponsor gifts starting?

OOC: No problem dear <3 And normally the next day. I'm gonna do a time skip in this post.

BIC:

"Nope, nothing," Spark replied. "I think we're the only ones to have made it this far on this side of the canyon."

Spark lit a match discretely and started the fire, warming her hands over it once the sky was dark. The anthem broke out over them and the faces of the twelve tributes to have died tonight appeared in the sky. She saw that Rhy, her co-tribute from 5, had died too and felt a pang of grief. She didn't know him, but he was from home.

Spark munched on half a beef strip then huddled up against the fire. They organized the different watches and Spark got to sleep first. She curled up inside her sleeping bag but couldn't manage to close her eyes for quite some time despite the tiredness and the stress.

The next morning, both were woken up by a rumbling that couldn't be good.

OOC: Hooray for avalanches!