CHAPTER SEVENTEEN;
building trust

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Vesper drifted in and out of sleep all night, fuzzy images of her mother flashing and fading like phosphenes. At the first glimpse of sunrise that she senses she awakens fully, feeling the golden rays warm up her skin.

The other two are still asleep. Levin, about a metre or two away from where she was lying, looks just as soundly asleep as Icarus swaying peacefully in the hammock. Right now, it is easy to forget where they are. It feels like hanging out with her friends back in District Six all over again.

Still, despite giving the benefit of the doubt, she cannot be sure if she trusts Levin wholly. It is for that reason that Vesper feels the urge to wake Icarus up before she goes hunting — it fills her with relief to see his eyes open, but clearly he does not feel the same way. Is this what it's like to have a teenage kid? she thinks to herself, amused as she wonders if this is what Gloria Brunel has to put up with every morning. Vesper sets off on the hunt for breakfast; unsurprisingly, frogs are on the menu again. Better frogs than an empty stomach.

     Having been a little bit better-fed and hydrated, Vesper feels much more alert than the previous few days. The frogs stand little chance this morning. By the time she has speared one, then two, then three with the tip of her machete, Icarus has rolled groggily out of his hammock and Levin is just about coming to.

     Eating strips of cooked frog's legs over the fire, the trio begin to debate their next move.

     "So how many are dead now?" Vesper asks.

     "Twelve," Levin replies, "There were ten in the Bloodbath, then only Merona and that District Five boy have died since."

Ignoring the way Icarus tenses up beside her, she sits up straight. Knowing that neither of those deaths were at the hands of the Careers disorientates her — Merona died of her breathing problems, and Edison... well, she doesn't need to remind herself of that. So where are the Careers? What is taking them so long to make a kill? Then again, it has only been about four days. There is still ample time.

"The Careers are probably scouring every corner of the arena, so I say we get moving," Vesper suggests hastily.

But Levin shakes his head, jaw clenched. "No. I don't think we should risk it."

"Levin... they could find us at any given moment. It's too good to be true that neither of us have seen the Careers since the Bloodbath."

"I know that, but this is the first bit of good dry land either of us have found in days. Do you really want to give that up so quickly? Besides, if we get stuck in a fight out on the water with Careers, we'd be much more vulnerable. I say we stay here and get used to our surroundings. We can't be sure where we will find elevated land after this."

The pair from District Six are silent for a couple of moments, considering this. Icarus strums his fingers across his bows and pouts. "He's got a point, you know," he shrugs.

Vesper huffs. "... Alright, fine. We'll stay here for today, and then tomorrow morning we can go from there."

It doesn't seem like anyone is within close range of them for the time being, so they decide to use it to their advantage and go on a mass forage and hunt for food to stockpile. Icarus, now dubbed the plant expert after his poison ivy knowledge, goes to the bushes while Vesper and Levin look for food in a shallow stream nearby. The water is translucent with dirt, making it difficult to see, but they try their best to look for creatures.

Suddenly Levin lets out an excited gasp, and aims the tip of his sword towards the water's surface.

"What? What is it?" Vesper asks, confused by his outburst, but internally hoping he's found something more appetising than frogs.

He plunges the blade into the water, victorious in piercing whatever he was aiming for. He lifts the blade out of the water, droplets running down it as a small fish writhes on the tip. Next to it, Levin's lips quirk in pride.

"You know what this is?" he asks, almost proudly.

"... A fish?"

"Right, obviously. This is a minnow," Levin informs her. "Catch a few of these and that's us sorted for meals. We should find some sticks and use them as pikes."

Vesper disappears into the bushes and salvages a couple, handing one to Levin. They stand ankle-deep in the stream, poised with their makeshift pikes to spear the minnows with. She has her eyes on one minnow in particular, moving swiftly through the water, its scales acting as her only guide through the murky surface. She thinks she can strike it now, when Levin suddenly blurts something out:

     "I used to love minnow season back home."

     The minnow swims quickly away as it senses her pike hovering; but now she is distracted anyway. Lowering her pike, Vesper turns to face him.

     "My mom used to take me to this lake for my birthday, more inland from where we lived," Levin elaborates. "And my birthday is in the summer, when minnow season is. We would go fishing there until the sun set, or Peacekeepers tried to get us to go home, and it was... yeah, it was great."

     Vesper isn't sure how to deal with this information. She blinks at him, tightening her grip around her pike. Why is he telling this to her? What is she supposed to do? It seems so personal, too personal for him to be telling her. She prefers when they only have to think about the present moment — that way, it makes it easier when they will eventually have to part ways.

     She opens her mouth to reply, still unsure of what exactly she is going to say at all, when a nearby shriek makes her blood run cold.

     Icarus.

     Instinctually, her pike slips from her hands and splashes into the water, and she follows the cry. "Icarus!" she calls out. "Icarus!" She was distracted and he got killed, how could this happen, how could she let this happen—

     When she reaches the bushes, the source of the scream, she finds Icarus sat down trying to scoot backwards through the water — and clinging like a vice onto the tip of his boot is some... huge reptile. After staring at it a second longer, she notes it to be a snapping turtle, growling as its jaw clamps further around Icarus's boot. Those things are deceptively vicious.

     "Icarus, Icarus, shhh..." Vesper desperately tries to hush the whimpering boy. "We're gonna help you, but you have to stay quiet. Someone might hear us."

     He shudders and nods slowly, eyes wide as he stares down the turtle at his feet. Vesper rushes over behind the snapping turtle and hovers her hands over the reptile, hesitantly grabbing it by the shell and trying to yank it away. The snapping turtle hisses in response, as does Icarus, and she lets go.

     Levin finally arrives at her side, taking in the scene himself. "Alright, you— you hold Icarus, get him to stay still, and I'll try and get this thing off him."

     Vesper doesn't question it. Rushing around behind Icarus, she hooks her arms underneath his armpits so her fingers entwine around his chest. Using the pike he had tried hunting minnows with, Levin hovers cautiously near the turtle. From a distance, he tries poking it. It flinches and hisses, but doesn't let go.

"You're just pissing it off," Vesper says.

"I wasn't trying to poke it, I was trying to... give it something else to chew..." Levin trails off as he slips into focus once more. The tip of his tongue sticks out in deep concentration, edging closer with the stick to the turtle's mouth. Again, the moment the stick touches the turtle's mouth it hisses, but this time its jaw slackens and allows Icarus to free himself.

     However, now the turtle has its target set on Levin. It lunges straight for him, jaws ready to clamp around his limbs, but instead finds them fastening over the bark of Levin's stick. He tries to push against the strength of the turtle, the stick trembling in his hands until it abruptly snaps in half — the colour drains from his face at the sight.

"I think it's a mutt!" Levin jumps up. "I know snapping turtles aren't the most pleasant folks, but they shouldn't be this aggressive, right?"

"It tried to eat my foot!" Icarus cries.

"I know, I know," Vesper says, with a wave of her hand as she focuses on another sound behind her — the sound of jaws snapping together. "Well, if it's a mutt, I think one of its friends has come to join..."

The blade of Levin's blade propped up against the tree catches her eye. She can reach it. Circling cautiously around the new snapping turtle that has her cornered, she grabs it by the handle, removing it hastily from the sheath. As the turtle leaps for her — with surprising weightlessness for a brick of a reptile — she ducks out of the way, and from behind manages to plunge her sword into its head. From the turtle mutt there escapes a guttural groan, before a few moments later it withers within its shell.

     "Levin!" she calls to him.

     Catching her eye, he follows the move of the sword as she tosses it to him, and he catches it by the handle. Just in time, as the snapping turtle appears ready to strike, he drives the sword into its head once more to deliver the fatal blow.

     Icarus's chest rises and falls in shock. "Man, it— it came out of nowhere... I was just looking for plants and herbs, and then when I stepped in a little further, this... thing came out of the bushes and bit me."

     "It's gone now, you don't have to worry," Vesper tries reassuring him, but still picks up Levin's sword again once he crouches by Icarus to tend to him.

     "Did it feel like the bite went through your boot?" Levin asks him.

     "Um, no... at least I don't think so..."

     Before he has answered fully, Levin has already started untying Icarus's boot. With his foot propped up on his lap, he gently removes the boot before rolling down the sock, which has a small tear in it. Vesper holds her breath, anticipating a large bite puncture in his flesh, but sees only a small grazing.

     "Oh, that's not too bad. It just took a little bit of skin off," the District Four boy says softly, gesturing to the area. "Still... maybe it's better to be safe than sorry."

     Vesper finds herself entranced as Levin gets to work. She can't even intervene out of distrust for him. How could she, when he is handling Icarus so gently? No matter how hard she tries to be sceptical, there does not seem to be an ounce of ulterior motive in this boy. He has torn off some of the cleaner fabric of his shirt and is winding it around Icarus's foot, not too tightly so it can breathe, but enough to protect it from the countless infections the swamp could give him. It is as she is watching him that she remembers what Levin said about his job at home in his interview:

"Basically, if you're stranded out at sea or it's a really foggy day, that's what we're here for. Sometimes in a storm, I've seen boats almost go down and have had to swim or row out to help them."

At the time, there was part of her that wanted to say it was a bluff. To gain sympathy sponsors from the public. But watching him now, there seems to be a purity about him that completely catches her off guard. There doesn't seem to be a bone in that boy's body who would ever will to kill anyone. Some of his frustrations about his position as a Career make sense now. By his upbringing, he has probably helped countless people...

One thing's for sure — Levin is making this whole alliance a lot harder than it has to be.

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On the fifth day, it rained.

     It was a miracle that no sponsor in the Capitol could ever give them. Vesper relished it when she first felt the droplets hit her skin — cool and fresh, rolling down her arms and dripping from her chin. It dampened her hair, and not with her own sweat for once. She stuck her tongue out and laughed as droplets blissfully hit her tastebuds, soon tempting Icarus and Levin to do the same.

     And then it really began to pour...

     They were certainly thankful for the tarp Finnick had sent them. With rain cascading from the skies in torrents, it was difficult to keep a fire going, but not improbable if somewhat sheltered under plastic sheets and the tarp. Icarus took the hammock to sleep in for that evening once again, and they fastened the tarp above him as a roof.

     Meanwhile, Vesper and Levin cook some minnows over the fire whilst Icarus snoozes in the hammock. They are sat cross-legged on the raft, the knobbly bamboo underneath digging into their tailbones, with one plastic sheet each draped over them (she had hoped they would come in handy eventually). Levin is in control of the fire, tediously cooking the minnows over the weak flame as she sits silently and watches while catching rainwater in her flask. They are almost rubbing shoulders, and she can feel his fever radiating onto her skin — he certainly does seem more feverish than a couple of nights ago. But other than that and the rash, the poison ivy seems to have had little effect on him.

     "Alright, that should do it." Levin inspects the cooked minnow and hands it over to Vesper. "Dinner is served."

     "You don't have to bone it first?" she asks.

     "No, minnows are tiny. You don't even notice the bones. You just eat 'em whole."

     Vesper glances sceptically at him for a few moments. The only fish she's had experience with are the ones on sale at the market at The Ring in the Epicentre, whenever the Reaping was over and neither she nor Blythe had been picked. They would buy some food to commemorate surviving another year, sometimes with fish, and bring it home for them all to eat — it used to be the three of them, until Vesper's father died. Now she thinks of it, they didn't even have a first time without him. Blythe just went home alone this year...

     Before she can think too much about Blythe, Levin's confused chuckle brings her back round. "What? It's not like I'm trying to kill you," he says, glancing down at the minnow. "And if I was, I would think of a better way to do it... than... with a fish."

     The ridiculousness of the notion makes Vesper snort; she can't help herself. Dispelling her worries about him, she takes a bite into the minnow. Levin watches as she chews it slowly.

     "Well?"

     "It's very... fishy."

     "That's a great observation."

     "That's the only word I have for it really, just... fishy. I don't know, it kinda reminds me of—"

     "Liver?" Levin laughs quietly. "Well, it wouldn't be my fish of choice, I'm more partial to a nice salmon or plaice."

     Finally swallowing her bite, she manages to chuckle with him; then something catches her eye. A silver chain dangling from Levin's neck, the pendant tucked inside his shirt.

     "What's that?" she asks, pointing to his collarbone.

     Levin follows her gaze down to the chain. "Oh, this? It's... it's my token. My one thing from home." He removes it from his neck, holding out for her to see. In his palm lies a V-shaped object at the bottom of the chain. "It's a wishbone," he explains. "I guess I think of it as my good luck charm."

     "You believe in that sort of stuff?"

     "I take it you're not superstitious?"

     "I couldn't be more removed from that stuff."

     "Okay, well... I guess it's just because it belonged to my dad," Levin admits. A flicker of fondness appears in his eyes, as if he is going over memories. "I never met him. The story is that he got lost at sea; drowned, I guess. So it was always me and my mom, working at the lighthouse. We're like this inseparable team. She's always had my back, so I've always had hers in return. She's... the main person I want to get home to. It's funny, 'cause she just thinks of this necklace as a scrap bit of metal. Doesn't even know why I like it so much. I don't know why either, I just... do."

     Vesper finds herself lost for words for a moment. She finds herself identifying with so much of what he has told her, so many parallels to her own life. Obviously she does not owe him any kind of story, but something about how closely their lives seem to have played out so far obligates her to do so.

     "I get that," she says. She has to force her words out as if her mouth is filled with tar. But now she has Levin's attention, so there is no turning back. "... I was really close to my dad, like you are with your mom. We only had each other, because my mom died when I was really young — but I guess you know that already." Alluding to her interview with Caesar, she sighs.

     "You must be looking forward to go back to him," Levin says earnestly.

     "I..."

     God, this is harder to say out loud than she thought.

     "He died. About a year ago now. He was sick for many years, but it got worse as he got older. It was in his joints... rheumatoid arthritis." Vesper inhales deeply, not liking this part of the story to tell. She slaps her hands on her knees to snap herself out of it. "But to cut a long story short, when a bad bout of pneumonia hit him, I... we couldn't scrape together enough money for medicine in time. And that was it."

     The end.

     Levin goes quiet for a few moments, staring out at the rain hitting the surface of the swamp. "I'm sorry," he finally says.

     She shrugs, numbing herself to the pain trying to creep in. You cannot afford to feel this now. Not now.

     "That must have been really hard. I can't imagine if I ever lost my mom, I'd—"

     "Can you just... leave it? Please?" Vesper pleads. It is one of her biggest pet peeves, those who try to pity or pry. She learned early on that it gets you nowhere. Besides, she's had enough prying from the Capitol before she went into the arena.

     Luckily, Levin questions her no further on her father, and quickly switches the subject. "So what's it like in District Six?"

     "What's it like?" she echoes. "Why, are you planning to go there on holiday if you win? Splash out all your victor's money?"

     "No, I'm just curious. I've never been outside of District Four until I got picked for the Hunger Games. It feels a little weird to know that I only know about one tiny puzzle piece of Panem and squad-zero about the rest."

     Vesper sighs. "Loud. Polluted. Overcrowded."

     "C'mon, there's got to be more than that."

     "There really isn't."

     "I could say the same about the Capitol, so that's not very inventive." Suddenly he looks up to the sky, and whispers a meagre "Sorry!" to the invisible Gamemakers above, as if they are listening in and will punish him for his opinion by sending him his death.

     "Well..." Vesper thinks hard. "It's so diverse. I mean, I've only seen a small bit of Six myself, but even that small corner is full of so many characters. And the thing is that even the most far-flung areas of the district, the very rare rural parts, there are still people there with their own way of life. We're kind of separated from each other — mainly by types of transport work, but also we're all bent into a horseshoe around Lake Mercury. It could be totally different where others live. But I live in a cramped apartment, where not much light comes in through the windows. You can always hear the traffic or some kind of bustle going on below. Sometimes it gets violent. There are so many people on the streets, and some kids go to work earlier than their teens. So the truth is there is so much about District Six that I don't know."

     Levin stares off into the distance, intrigued as he seems to be slowly digesting and visualising her description.

     "What about District Four? What's that like?" Vesper asks. "I can take an educated guess that you're at least a little more well-off than we are."

     "Not exactly..." he answers slowly. "I mean, yeah, we're a Career district so we have our richer parts. Our capital city is all glittering harbours, nice beaches, and so on. But that's about it. Go out a little further and you just find rusting docks and factories that stink of sardines. I'm just lucky to live where I live."

     "Where do you live?"

     "Not answering that directly, but..." Levin grins for a moment at the same time Vesper does, although it is bittersweet. The thought of the Capitol tracking down where his mother lives is unnerving. Although in all honesty, they probably already know. "We live in this small coastal town. This hill goes down, down, down and all these houses are dotted along as you go down. We live on one of the last ones as you get to the beach... and then there it is, just, the sea."

     Vesper considers this for a moment. Then, quietly, she admits:

     "I've never seen the sea before."

     Levin scoots up closer to her, so their shoulders are now touching, and as he starts describing he makes hand gestures out to the swamp; as if he is painting a picture of the sea over this harsh landscape. "Well, for starters, the air is like nothing you've ever breathed or will breathe again. And the sea, the tides coming onto the shore, it sounds like the most soothing thing in the world... most days, anyway. But if there's a storm raging, the waves crashing onto the rocks are deafening. I think that's what I love about it most. It can be secure and dangerous at the same time. I mean, I lost my dad to the sea... and yet, I don't think I have felt safer anywhere else."

     "It sounds... amazing."

     "It is. My favourite thing to do is to stand where the tide meets the shore, and just feel the waves roll over your feet. Everyone talks about doing it in the summer when the sun is setting, and sure, it's beautiful when you can see right out onto the horizon, but I prefer it in the winter. I don't know, there— there is just nothing like going down on a misty morning, and standing right there, right where the tide comes in. It's the thrill that you can't see anything beyond the mist. It feels like... you are standing on the edge of the universe... and you just don't know what is beyond. There has to be something... something more than this... out there, in... somewhere else..."

     Levin stops. He glances across to Vesper for the first time since talking about his home. The enchanted look in his dilated pupils suddenly vanishes, as he becomes awkward.

     "I'm losing you, aren't I?" he says sheepishly.

     "No, I—"

     "It's alright, I lost where I was going with that at the end. I do that sometimes."

     A frog croaks nearby, pulling Vesper abruptly from the euphoria of standing where the tide meets the shore, and instead sitting on a soggy bamboo raft in a rainy swamp. The jump back to reality somehow wears her out, and she rubs her eyes tiredly.

     "I'll keep watch tonight," Levin tells her softly. "You should get some rest."

     Vesper doesn't try arguing with him. She is too tired to do that. Instead, she curls up at the other end of the raft as Levin props himself up against a nearby tree, giving her more space to sprawl out.

     "Hey, no sleeping on—"

     "— poison ivy. I know, Vesper."

     She grins, eyes closed. Curled under the pitter-patter of the rain on the plastic sheets, she lets her mind wander into a slumber... out of the swamp, far away from the Capitol... instead, she dreams that she is walking onto a beach, at the bottom of a hill dotted with houses, and where the tide meets the shore she stands, and dares to reach into the mist.

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A/N;

WELP, bet you weren't expecting a double update today! neither was i, but i realised i'd pre-written most of this chapter a while back, so all i had to do was finish it off and then tweak some parts. i'm actually quite glad because this chapter contained that ending scene with vesper and levin...

on the subject of vesper and levin, that's actually something i just wanted to ✨share my thoughts✨ on (without spoiling anything for future chapters either. for some reason i always struggle to call vespin "romantic" because for some reason, it feels like such a throwaway word for the connection they are growing? so if i respond cryptically to some of your comments about shipping them or being an OTP, that's why! (but if there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that levin genuinely seems to feel something for vesper 👀). i really can't say much more without spoiling stuff or ruining your reading experience, but yeah, i just felt like sharing my thoughts for some reason... this whole paragraph was a mess, oops—

well, if we can guarantee anything, it is that I'M in love with levin strand 😌🥰

anyway, as always thank you for reading and i hope you have a lovely day/evening! please leave a comment for feedback if you have the time.

p.s. despite turtles/tortoises literally being my favourite animal, SNAPPING TURTLES ARE PRETTY SCARY YIKES

I MEAN??? 😰😰

[ published: 20th february, 2022 ]

— Imogen