July 17th, 10:00 AM, First Morning of The 53rd Reaping

The Blood Bath, Lovino Vargas

Lovino blinked his eyes in an attempt to lessen the visible fear on his face, standing up straight to look more imposing as he counted down to sixty in his head in the seconds following the announcer's voice. If he stepped off his plate before the gong then he would be blown the golden to bits. The minute was clearly given to tributes to allow them to form a strategy, but cornucopia resting inside of the circle of tributes filled with supplies and weapons was a luring danger, compelling them to stay.

Lovino decided to run instead, deciding not to be fooled. It wasn't worth it. He wasn't skilled enough to go in blindly. He'd last much longer using his knowledge about edible plants then attempting to risk his life getting supplies he didn't necessarily need. At least he was from District Eleven. Most of the other people around him didn't have the skills for scavenging. That would benefit him greatly.

Lovino decided to spend the rest of his last minute of respite to survey his surroundings. If his shivering was anything to go by, the climate was much colder than he was used to. District Eleven was comparably more southern than many of the other districts, though. He glanced away from the cornucopia to observe the arena itself. There was a forest off on one side of the arena, to his right. On his left, there was a group of boulders scattered around, the size growing larger the further out they went until they formed a collection of mountainous ranges. Lovino figured that it would be a wonderful hiding place to some, but for him…. It wouldn't do him much good.

He looked at the two people on either side of him. The girl from 9 with the large bosoms and the boy from 10, Alfred. He found himself relieved that he didn't have a Career too close to him. That would be bad, especially if it were Luciano or Natalya. They seemed to be the most dangerous of the bunch.

He figured that he probably had only a few seconds left before the gong was supposed to ring out. He attempted to settle any remaining nerves that he may be feeling. Now wasn't the time for them. He couldn't afford to look scared now. As the gong ran out, he jumped off of his metal plate and started running, determined to escape from the ensuing chaos that he knew would happen from all the previous Games he'd had to see.

If he survived the Bloodbath, he knew that he suddenly had a much higher chance to survive the Games in general. His odds would increase, whatever they were. May the odds be ever in your favour, my ass, he thought.

The gong went off in the background, signalling what may very well be the last few days of his life. He jumped off his plate and sped off, running as quickly as he could in the direction of the trees, only to run straight into another tribute. He cursed loudly as he fell to the ground, his back crashing into the hard ground.

He glanced up at the tribute responsible, catching the blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He glared at him as he attempted to get up. He noticed that the other male already had a spear (1) in one hand and a bag over his shoulder. Well, he may as well die like the spitfire he was. "Watch where you're going you damn potato bastard!" He yelled at Ludwig as he got back to his feet, wondering where the fuck "potato bastard" had come from. Not important, he decided.

"It seems like you're the one who ran into me." Ludwig said, confusion seeming to be displayed on his mostly apathetic face. Ludwig looked Lovino up and down, clearly examining him for weapons. He frowned.

"Whatever," Lovino replied with a scowl as he brushed non-existent dust off of his pants to break the contact. He glanced over at where Feliciano was standing, chatting with the boy from Five over a body that seemed to be Milada, the girl from Five. Gilbert looked a bit distantly at the body before turning to answer the boy from One. Lovino's gaze reluctantly drifted back to Ludwig. "May as well be allies, dammit. Just stop looking at me like that you damn pervert."

Ludwig's eyebrows furrowed, apparently confused by either the offer or the accusation, Lovino didn't care which. "What? All right. Where did you want to—" Lovino stormed off to the forest before he could finish answering the question, not bothering to see if his new ally was actually following him.

Lovino glanced around the forest, using the skills he had picked up in District Eleven to guide him. He couldn't hear Ludwig's heavy build stomping behind him, but he could hear his presence. At least he apparently had an oddly quiet tread. That would come in handy.

He managed to make it to a large clearing within the deep forest, with a large boulder that would be easy to climb. The shape of the boulder allowed the climber to stand on top of it, their lower half hidden, as if it was a guarded wall such as the one back home.

Ludwig opened his mouth to say something, only to quickly close it with a frown as loud stomping noises filled the clearing. Ludwig quickly spun, angling his spear towards where the noise was coming from. Lovino quickly hid behind him, sputtering like the very coward he had sworn less than twenty minutes beforehand that he wouldn't be. (2)

He felt stupid when it ended up being just Gilbert and Feliciano and not someone really threatening like Luciano or someone like that. Frankly, he wasn't scared of either of the Unawesome Bastard or Feliciano, even though Gilbert had a sword on his waist. He bravely stepped away from Ludwig's back, blushing madly while cursing himself.

Feliciano ran over and through his arms first around Ludwig and then around Lovino, both of whom tensed. Apparently, someone had decided that they were his new friends. How naïve. Well, whatever. Lovino ignored the ache that he felt when he realised that Feliciano wasn't all that cut out for this game.

"Why the hell did you decide to take that dumbass with you?" Lovino chided Feliciano, scowling at Gilbert. The less allies he had the better. He definitely didn't need both Feliciano and Gilbert as well as the potato bastard. Seriously, he needed to come up with a better nickname that at least makes sense. Oh, whatever. They'd all be dead in three days anyway. That shouldn't matter at this point.

Feliciano started to talk incredibly fast. Lovino wasn't even if he stopped to breath. "I was running away from Luciano and then Gilbert starting crying over his partner—"

"I wasn't crying! Don't tell them those lies, North!" Gilbert said, using an apparent nonsensical nickname of his own.

"And then we agreed to be allies and started running and Gilbert tripped over someone's body –"

"Lying is unawesome! I'll tell the story myself!"

"Please don't. I have enough to worry about other than your entire journey." Ludwig said before Gilbert could relay his side of the story and before Lovino could interrupt with curse words and insults geared at one or both of the newcomers. "We should divide whatever supplies we received from the cornucopia and set up watch schedules."

The other three looked at each other and shrugged, deciding that they may as well do as Ludwig had said. None of them had any plans of their own, anyway. Ludwig and Gilbert through the two bags that they had thought to grab down on the floor and opened them, revealing crackers, jerky, a few water bottles, iodine to purify the arena water, packs of dry fruit, and a decent sized loaf of bread. They also had a small first aid kit that had gauze and even thread for stitches. 7 cannons were fired off, during this time signalling the deaths of 7 people in the arena. Only 17 left standing. They only stopped for a few moments to wonder who it was before sorting through the first aid kit. Since it seemed that Gilbert seemed prone to not-tripping Lovino snidely told Ludwig to let him keep every in the first aid kit. Ludwig sighed before shrugging. He set aside a few gauzes for him, Lovino, and Feliciano and handed the rest to a sputtering, glowering Gilbert. Lovino smirked at him behind Ludwig's back.

Gilbert thought he caught movement behind the giant rock. He frowned, suspiciously and excused himself to see what it was, pulling his spear out just in case, letting the others go ahead and believe he just didn't like to be teased. Not that there was anything to tease about.

*dramtatic cliffhangery music in the back ground* lol, no but seriously.

*goes off to write updates for The Dying Ember and The Captive's Game on Fictionpress. For those of you lovers of "I'm Starting To Think You Don't Mean That" I'm working on it still. Will be done, hopefully, by the end of March, possibly mid-Febuary. I'm typing the main list for England atm and I'm at 51 of 100. So there's that.

I'm also trying to get through chapters for this following stuff:

Milky O Awesomeway (I'm working on chapter 52 out of 100)

Not In Our Favour

Gold Turns To Crimson

And I'm working on both the sequel to Burning Secrets and a long shot for dark!Prumano (I've been working on the long shot for a year and a half roughly, luckily I've finally gotten near the end, whoo!

Oh, I'm also working on a playlist for my original stories and backstories for the Fifteen of The Dying Ember (I've gotten through almost half of the list, working on Zuko's now)

Wish me luck trying to find the time to do all of that and do classwork for my second semester of college, especially once TWD comes back on in three weeks. Bleh.