Dew of the Sea [Finnick Odair]

[13. Alliances]

Night One

Rosemary

She sat down at the bottom of the tree she had been leaning against and rested her back to the trunk. After shrugging off her bag, she zipped it open and started going through its contents.

The largest thing in the pack was the thick parka made from a type of fabric that was water-resistant yet soft like wool. It was so long, she felt that it would fall to her knees when she wore it. It was as good as a blanket or sleeping bag that she was going to get and she was grateful.

There was no water in the pack, but there was an empty half-gallon bottle, along with a bottle of iodine to purify water when she found it. For food, there was a pack of four dried beef sticks, four individual saltine crackers, and a package of dried fruit. It wasn't enough to survive on but it was enough until she could find her own food. She spotted edible plants here and there as she walked through the woods, but she hadn't wanted to stop in case someone was behind her.

The pack also included a tube of matches, a small first aid kit, a bundle of rope, a coil of wire, and a small serrated knife. The knife wasn't anything special, but she'd be able to kill and skin game with it if she needed to, or saw thick branches apart. She could probably use it to defend herself as well, but if someone was getting that close to her that she could stab them, she was sure she'd be dead.

She repacked her bag as well as she could but slipped the parka over her head. Once the sun went down, so did the already-low temperatures. Rosemary's fingertips felt like ice and when she put her hands in the pockets of the parka, she sighed in sweet relief, enjoying the warmth that surrounded her fingers.

Before she could even think about sleeping, she knew she had to make some sort of shelter or protective covering. Thankfully, she had the tarp still and she could cover it with snow to cover up the neon yellow color of it. She wandered around, about twenty feet in each direction, and looked for fallen branches. As she looked, she also set up a few snares to catch food with.

Rosemary struggled to see in the dark, but there was nothing that could be done for it. She couldn't light a fire, especially at night. It would be a dead giveaway to her location and soon other Tributes would be on top of her.

In the distance she could see that one of the Tributes made a dumb mistake and had lit a fire. Up above the trees, the barest of light could be seen lighting up wisps of smoke. Soon, depending on how close the Careers were to the fire, there would be a cannon. No one else hunted during the night and as long as Rosemary stayed far away from the fire, she didn't think the Careers would find her.

She continued looking for larger sticks for shelter but was unsuccessful. She decided to try another approach. When snow was packed, it contained heat, so maybe she could make a bed of snow, curl up in a ball under her parka, and then put the snow-covered tarp on top of her so she blended into the snow? She could use pine leaves, pine cones, and smaller branches to camouflage her even further.