𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 || Narnia x The Hunger Games Crossover

Chapter Sixteen

Lucy's eyes fluttered open to the muted murmur of voices, punctuated by the occasional clatter of stone or dink of metal, filtering so slowly into her senses that for a moment she almost thought she was back at home, waking to the bustle of the family below the attic.

But then she shifted, squinted, and peeled her cheek from Caspian's jacket where she'd fallen asleep after passing the watch off to him, and her memory trickled back as she blinked blearily around the cavern.

Jill sat a few yards away, sizing up a small object between her fingers and tossing it at the wall, clattering as it bounced off and skittered over the floor.

"Not even close," murmured Edmund, seated across from her, poised with a pebble in his own hand. He launched it loosely toward the same wall, and it bounced off, too.

A small metallic figure skittered away.

"You're one to talk," said Jill, and he pursed his lips.

Lucy blinked, straightening suddenly up from the wall. "You're not dead," she blurted, in what was probably not the most tactful moment of her life.

Caspian stirred at her movement.

Edmund glanced over his shoulder, tousled black hair overshadowing his eyes. "Your skills of observation never cease to astound me."

His skin no longer glistened with sweat, only the same grimy sheen as the rest of them. His fever must have broken in the night, and to already be sitting up… forget an antibiotic, that must have been some cocktail of Capitol miracle drugs.

Even his voice sounded clearer, and the water bottle sat a little away from Jill, now nearly empty.

Caspian rubbed his eyes and shifted beside Lucy, glancing around but offering no comment on the scene.

"Sleep alright?" she asked.

He grunted something incoherent, and that about summed it up.

Lucy's own back ached as she moved away from the wall and Caspian stood to stretch his legs, black spots creeping into her vision, head fuzzy, not quite as bad as yesterday.

Jill handed them the water bottle and they finished it off easily, packing it into the bag along with the food they'd moved into one of the smaller containers. Caspian and Lucy split a grain and nut bar, but all the while, she couldn't keep her eyes off Edmund.

"Do you think you can walk?" she asked, unable to fathom how he was even still breathing, let alone… normal. Or at least, normal for Edmund.

"Well, I made it all the way up here, didn't I? I'm not stopping now."

She nodded slowly, though that didn't really answer any of her questions.

He barely met her eyes, struggling to his feet and steadying himself against the wall as she shouldered her bag and at last they got back on the move.

Caspian said nothing as he took the lead through the new tunnel at the back of the mountaintop cavern, and for a while Lucy could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other as her sore calf muscles pulled and strained in protest after yesterday's long climb.

Edmund trailed at the back, chucking small stones at the scuttling shadows that followed them, and Jill copied him.

"Three," she muttered when her stone bounced off metal.

Edmund's next shot struck a red glint on the ceiling, and the sharp scuttle of pincers took it quickly out of sight.

"Twelve."

"Show off," hissed Jill.

The clicking shadows bobbed all around them now, more than Lucy had ever seen in one place. Perhaps she hadn't been paying attention before. Or perhaps they really had become that much more interesting to the outside world, cameras crowding in to capture every angle just like they had at the train station.