These days, the wind’s so stingingly sharp it feels like it’s flaying the skin off his face. It’s hard to imagine setting up camp anywhere other than in the cave they settled into before the brutal drop in temperatures towards the end of the first week – and with that in mind they’ve been mindful to guard it as best they could against other would-be intruders. Just like back home, certain sorts of people would not be above trying to take food or supplies or shelter by force. Many have done worse – taken more - for lesser reasons.

So when someone’s voice bounces off the cave walls, a muted echo, Luke snaps to attention and is up on his feet with a branch-spear in hand, every line of his body tightening. But he doesn’t move to engage the stranger yet. There’s a bend in the tunnel ahead, enough that Luke can’t see who might be of a mind to come their way – though with any luck maybe the man would reconsider.

Because, before the bend and not all too far from the cave’s mouth, is the first of two rudimentary snow-and-sharpened-pike fences they’ve erected which have since frozen solid. Nothing that an adult of average height couldn’t very carefully cross if he or she meant to. It was really only a deterrent marking ownership of the space – and that being the case he’s inclined to think only the most desperate, morbidly curious, or bloodthirsty of tributes would take one look at it and keep pressing forward. But they'd hear an intruder coming at least, the cave floor around the first fence being littered with layers of thinner, dead branches just waiting to snap underfoot.

Luke steps over the second barrier separating their living space from the rest of the cave, listening quietly. His pulse racing in his throat.

"Hey," He calls back, his voice firm but not unfriendly. "Cave's taken."