Hello, and welcome to the story! I don't normally put notes at the beginnings of chapters, but there's something I want to bring up before you go in. This story will be a little be a little… gruesome at times. I wouldn't say it's particularly graphic, and I've consulted with some people regarding the rating and we all seem to be on the same page about it. I think this chapter will be the worst offender, but I don't plan on even doing this sort of thing all that often. That said, I may end up changing the rating to M at some point down the line. Hopefully this won't dissuade anyone from reading.
Enjoy!
Water.
That was the only word in her head. She didn't know what it meant, but she sensed it had to do with the pain in her throat. She stumbled, sinking into the fine sand that made up the ground. Struggling back to her feet, she looked upwards. Something black hung down in front of her eyes, partially obscuring her vision, but she was still able to fix her eyes on the bright white circle that seemed to be casting the unbearable heat over her. The… son? No, that's something else. Sun. Her eyes quickly began to ache and she had to look away.
Water.
She took another uneasy step forward, unable to see clearly through the large spot of color filling the center of her vision. She had done… something to cause this. She couldn't remember what. She put her foot down, but it met only empty space. Losing her balance, she collapsed again before rolling down a… hill of some sort. It wasn't a normal hill though, made up of fine, weather-beaten sand. She got back to her feet. What does a normal hill look like? She frowned. The words were in her head, but she couldn't make sense of them.
Water.
A whirring began to fill the void in her ears. She looked around, trying to find the source of the irritating noise. Her eyes scanned quickly over a bright white disc before settling on a black spot amidst the blue. …Bird. She continued walking the direction she'd been going before coming across a trail where something had been dragged through the sand. She stopped to look at it. It seemed… familiar, but she couldn't remember ever having seen something like it before. She lifted her foot to take another step, but the other leg gave way beneath her.
Water.
She suddenly became aware of a loud whirring sound, and a small wind began to throw tiny grains of sand into her body. She struggled back to her feet and looked toward the source. A large metal—Bird? No, too big. Boat?—hovered several feet above the sand, blowing the particles away from itself. Two figures appeared from within the ship and began to move toward her. The one in front—Male… How do I know that?—wore a long coat and a flat-brimmed hat that shielded him from the sun and sand. Behind him was a woman wearing a—Bag? Sheet? Poncho—and clutching a large, strange-looking device near her chest. Weapon. She looked back toward the man. Aside from holding his hat on his head, he held nothing in his hands. She noticed, however, that he had similar looking tools on each hip.
Water.
The two seemed to have no difficulty moving through the sand, though she had no idea where they had come from. The man in front said something, but the words made no sense to her. He modified the phrase slightly, but it still held no meaning for her. She took a step forward, but lost her balance and fell forward. She stared down at the sand for several moments before a pair of… somethings rested on her shoulders. The contact burned, but the only sound she could make in protest was a pathetic croak. She looked up and saw a man supporting her—had she seen him before? He wore a flat-brimmed hat that cast a shadow over his face, but it did little to obscure it. He took one hand off her shoulder and reached into his long coat to remove a flat, circular container. He unscrewed the cap and held it out to her. "—ink this. Not too fast."
Water.
She shakily took the container and brought it to her mouth. This was water. The cool liquid poured out, instantly soothing the dryness in her mouth. She swallowed and felt the water slide down her throat. It was the most incredible thing she'd ever felt, but the moment didn't last long. She needed more. She tried to drink the rest of the liquid as fast as she could, but the man stopped her. "Whoa! Not so much." Having found water, the word that had been repeating in her head was replaced by another.
Kill.
She knew what that one meant. Jerking her arm forward, she plunged it into the man's chest. He had a wide-eyed look on his face as she wrapped her fist around his heart. She crushed it in her hand and yanked it out, blood splattering onto the sand between them. A small dribble of the crimson liquid oozed out of his mouth before he fell backwards, dead.
The woman behind the man panicked, bringing her weapon up to point it at the now-bloodied girl. She managed to get a couple shots off, but she was too slow. As the bullets buried themselves in the sand, a bloody hand was already on her throat. She tried to scream as the claws dug into her neck, but she could only make a gurgling sound. The two hit the ground, and the girl pulled her arm back, completely tearing her victim's throat out.
She stood, watching for a moment as the blood from the two fresh corpses soaked into the sand. Scrambling over the bodies, she grabbed up the canteen and put it back to her mouth. Nothing came out. She dropped it, looking down at the spot where it had been laying. The water had completely emptied out into the sand. Her eyes settled on her hands, covered in blood. It was warm, but if it soothed the pain in her throat…
(-)
Oliver stared out at the desert passing beneath the Bullhead. There was a limit to his attention, however, and he reclined back as best he could in the co-pilot's chair. Kicking his feet up onto the control panel, he tipped his hat down over his eyes and settled in for a nap. The moment of respite was short-lived as his pilot swatted his legs off their perch, keeping her orange eyes looking out into the desert and one hand on the control stick. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye out for Grimm?"
The gunslinger sat up in a huff. "Can't you watch out for them while I take a nap?"
"So you're saying you want a repeat of what happened last time you fought right after waking up?" his partner reminded with a smile.
Oliver frowned at the memory, but he wasn't ready to concede just yet. "Doesn't this thing have a gun on it?"
The ginger shrugged. "Fine, but when we collect on this job, you're paying for the ammo."
Sighing, the black-haired man sat back up. The Bullhead's guns chewed through more ammo in one second than he could fire in ten minutes. As he returned his eyes to the wasteland, he continued the conversation in a last ditch effort to avoid the boring task. "Y'know, if you would just let me fly, this wouldn't be a problem—"
"For the last time, we agreed that I was getting the stick this mission!"
Oliver struggled to keep from chuckling at the accidental innuendo. "Alright, alright, " he said jokingly. "No need to make it weird." She just rolled her eyes. Slips of the tongue were more common with her than she would like, but after almost a decade of working together, they had become used to it. That didn't make the mistakes any less humorous to the gunslinger, though, and neither did his age.
The pair slipped into silence, Oliver once again slowly growing bored with the excruciatingly dull task. After about fifteen minutes, however, something caught his eye. Sitting up in his seat, he tapped his partner's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Hey, Tawny. Look." He pointed down to a small black speck amidst the endless browns of the desert.
The woman squinted her eyes to see what he was referring to. "Is that a Grimm?"
Oliver shook his head. "I don't think so. I think…" He squinted his eyes further. "I think it's a person."
"All the way out here? There's nothing for miles!"
The black-haired man shrugged. "Either way, we should check it out." Tawny nodded and adjusted their trajectory toward the figure. Freeing himself of his restraints, Oliver stood up. "I'll go get Timekeeper ready for you."
Descending the short flight of stairs connecting the cockpit and main hold with a single step, he carefully made his way to the far side and pulled his partner's light machine gun off the rack. He'd always found the term comically misleading as the weapon weighed about as much as a small adult. As he ran through the final checks on the weapon, he felt the airship begin to descend. Once it had stopped, the side doors began to open and Tawny stepped down into the hold. "It's a person, alright," she told him as she threw her poncho over her head. "Girl, probably late teens and—get this—naked."
Well, that is certainly odd. Oliver hefted Timekeeper up in his hands. "Guess you don't need this then."
She grabbed the weapon from him. "Khepers?"
Oliver's face paled at the mention of the Grimm. He jerked his head to look outside, as if one of the scarab-like creatures was going to burst out of the sand at any time—and he knew very well that they could. "Right. Let's do this quick, then."
Grabbing hold of his hat against the whirling of the engines, he made his way to the open door and dropped out. He glanced back at the ship, noting the distance it was hovering above the sand. "Good job!" he shouted to his partner. "You didn't park it in the sand this time!" The woman ignored him and followed him out of the hold. She stayed behind him as he made his way toward the girl, who stood staring at them. She was tall, with long, messy black hair that partially obscured her face and incredibly pale skin—even more so than an Atlesian—marred by the beginnings of a nasty sunburn.
Oliver started jogging toward her, boots sinking slightly into the soft sand. Once he was far enough away from the ship, he called out to the girl. "Hey! Are you alright?" She didn't respond, so he repeated the question, louder this time. "Hey! Are you okay?!" The girl tried to step toward him, but collapsed as she put weight on her foot. He quickly covered the remainder of the distance between them and rested his hands on her shoulders, gently lifting her up. She made a small, pained sound as he touched her raw skin.
Shit, she's probably dehydrated. Reaching into his coat, he fumbled around for his canteen. Pulling it out, he unscrewed the cap and held it out to her. "Here, drink this. Not too fast." The girl accepted the drink almost hesitantly, but after the first swallow she began trying to down it as fast as she could. "Whoa!" He grabbed her arm gently to try and force her to slow down. "Not so much." For a brief moment, he thought he saw a killing intent in her blood-red eyes.
Then she passed out in his arms.
"Shit!" Oliver quickly adjusted his hold around the girl, being especially careful around her legs, and picked her up. "We need to get her to a hospital, ASAP!" he barked to his partner as he turned around. The woman nodded and the two ran back to the airship as fast as they were able. As they neared their goal, however, there was an explosive sound behind them. Neither of them needed to look to know what it was. "Hold them off until I can get her secured!"
Tawny stopped running and spun, dropping to one knee and opening fire. The thundering bass drove him onward and he leapt into the Bullhead. Pulling one of the seats down with his foot, he set the girl down into it and began working the straps to secure her. On the other side of the ship, however, a second explosion disturbed the otherwise calm sand several dozen yards away. As thousands of grains rained back down to the ground, Oliver spotted the Kheper crawling to the surface. Of all the things to have a phobia of, it had to be insects. He drew both halves of Venation and began firing the hand cannons at the Grimm. Several rounds found their marks in the unprotected areas, but most ricocheted off the armor plating.
The creature screeched in irritation and fired several thorns at him in retaliation. There were several short bursts of white light as each barb struck an invisible barrier several feet from their target and dropped to the ground. The scarab scuttled beneath the sand. Oliver holstered his guns quickly and went back to securing the unconscious girl, glancing to his right to make sure the Kheper wasn't coming toward the ship. The approaching furrow in the sand told him it was. Tightening the last strap, he headed for the cockpit, yelling at his partner as he went. "We need to get out of here now!"
Sitting in the pilot's chair, he felt the ship tilt slightly as something boarded. He hoped it was Tawny. "Go!" It was her. Resisting the urge to yank up on the collective control, he eased it upward, causing them to rise. He heard Timekeeper continue to fire before an explosion shook the ship, forcing him to correct. A red light began to flash, indicating an engine problem, but went out within seconds. Despite making the ship slower and harder to handle, he left the side doors open. While they were far enough away to avoid the Kheper's explosive surfacing, the bugs could still fly and would cause trouble if Tawny didn't take them out. Surprisingly, there wasn't any more gunfire from his partner. The woman climbed up the steps and took the seat next to him. Keeping his eyes ahead, he caught her hitting the button to close the doors in his periphery. "All gone, I take it?"
"Not quite." The tone of her voice did not make it sound like she had good news. "They didn't even bother to chase. By their size, I'd guess they were pretty old, so they probably knew better."
"Damn," Oliver muttered. The one he'd shot at looked pretty big, but his judgement of size wasn't the most reliable when it came to insects. "They probably would have brought in a nice reward." He glanced down at the console. "What happened with the engine?"
"Kheper burst up right under it. The sand would've taken it out, so I pulled the plug for a moment. You owe me a new poncho, by the way."
Oliver looked at her. Sure enough, the garment was gone, leaving her in her halter top and chinos. She was sweating heavily, even for the desert, and he thought he smelled soot in the air. "How do I owe you the poncho?" he asked. "You should make them more heat-resistant."
The orange-haired woman took a long drink from a water bottle she'd pulled from the small cooler behind her. "Because it was your Kheper that almost took out the ship," she explained, wiping the excess fluid from her mouth. "If you had actually killed it before it burrowed again, none of it would have happened."
"In my defense, you were supposed to be covering me while I—" The man stopped his argument short as he remembered their charge. "Shit! The girl!" Momentarily locking the controls, he got up and let his partner take over. Moving back down into the hold, he made his way over to where he'd strapped in the unconscious teen. Taking off his duster, he laid it over her naked form as best he could. She hadn't moved—not under her own power, at least—but a quick check told him she was still breathing.
Standing back up, he rubbed the back of his neck. There wasn't much else he could do for the girl while she was unconscious, but he didn't like the idea of leaving her alone in case she woke up. Sighing, he moved back toward the cockpit. As he took the first step, however, the ship suddenly lurched forward and to the left, causing him to stumble. He managed to catch one of the handrails on the ceiling. The ship quickly righted, and Tawny called out an apology from her seat. "Sorry! Hands slipped."
With a shake of his head, Oliver climbed back into the cockpit. "Let me fly. You go cool down and keep an eye on the girl." The woman hesitated for a moment before ceding the position to her partner. As she moved back into the hold, the gunslinger dropped himself into the chair. Pulling the headset off the wall to his left, he slipped it over his head. They were very nearly to Vacuo, and he would have to make arrangements to fly directly to the hospital. He frowned at the thought; there was always a lot of paperwork to do when these types of things happened.
(-)
The girl's eyes settled on her hands, covered in blood. It was warm, but if it soothed the pain in her throat… As she raised a finger to her mouth, the sanguine fluid faded out of existence, taking with it the feeling of warmth. She looked around and saw that the two bodies had disappeared as well, leaving her alone in the sand once again. She felt… It was a struggle to find the word for the emotion, but it eventually came to her.
Disappointment.
She wasn't quite as thirsty as she had been before, so that was… good, she supposed. As she stood thinking, a pair of black insects—Butterflies—flew up to her. She reached out to touch one, but it darted away. The fluttering of their wings suddenly became violent, buffeting her and driving her to her knees. The winds whipped up the sand around her, pelting and stinging her with the tiny grains and forcing her to shut her eyes. She lashed out blindly in an attempt to swat the offending creatures, but she couldn't find them. A moment later, the gusts disappeared and she opened her eyes.
She now wore the coat of the man who had given her water, and at her feet was the woman's weapon. She reached down and picked it up. It was impossibly light, and seemed a little smaller in her hands than it had in the woman's. Looking up, she saw a single massive butterfly floating at the top of one of the sand hills—Dunes. The insect began to flap its wings, sending gusts of wind and sand rushing down toward her. The force crashed into her, stinging her naked skin and blowing her hair and coattails out behind her, but she stood her ground. Even as she sunk into the sand, she pulled the weapon up to her shoulder and began firing. The bullets struck the giant insect, tiny pinpricks of light seeping out of the holes. More and more light poked through until the creature finally burst open with a flash of white.
The girl shielded her eyes against the flare. The light never dissipated, and slowly she removed her arm. Her coat and weapon were gone, as was the sand and sky. She now stood on a cold, empty, white surface that seemed to stretch on forever, with light radiating around her from seemingly nowhere. There was a soft beep behind her, and she turned to look. There was nothing. She heard the sound again, this time to her left, and turned to look. In the distance stood a black figure. There was another beep behind her and she turned again. She saw the same figure, though it was much closer now. Beep. She turned right, and the figure was on top of her. She tried to run, but everything turned black, save for her. Slowly, she faded away as well.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The girl slowly opened her eyes, and found light had once again returned. It hurt, but she forced her eyes to adjust to the change. She was laying on something soft, with something else just as soft and warm laying on top of her. She could see a definite wall this time, and slowly made out the figure that leaned against it. The woman wore an oddly designed yellow - - -, with white - - - that seemed too short for her. Shirt. Pants. She held something white in her hand, and occasionally brought it to her mouth—whatever was inside had a strong smell to it.
As her vision focused more and more, the girl realized the woman was the same one who had been carrying the weapon. She was looking at something near her—no, she was looking at her. The orange eyes seemed to register something and their owner shifted herself to kick something. The fuzzy form jerked upward, revealing itself to be the man who had given her water.
They weren't dead. She hadn't killed them. She was… Happy felt like the proper name for the emotion she was feeling. Her memories of what had happened were apparently questionable, and she wasn't sure what had happened and what hadn't. She had seen herself kill them, but she couldn't remember why. They hadn't threatened her in any way, and the man had actually given her water to drink. Then he'd pulled it away from her. No, that wasn't quite right. He'd tried to keep her from drinking as fast as she'd wanted to. She didn't know why he hadn't wanted her to, but she didn't remember him seeming malicious at the time.
Malicious. She like that word.
"Hey, you're up."
The man's voice sounded lower and more drawn out than the last time he'd spoken to her. She wasn't sure if there was something wrong with him or if people just—He's fatigued.
She tried to push herself up, but found herself lacking the strength. As she pressed down into whatever it was she was laying on, she felt something dig into her right arm. Leaning back, she saw that there was a tube attached to her arm with tape, and on the end was a needle stuck into her skin. She reached over to pull it out, but the man gently stopped her. "You were pretty dehydrated. The eye-vee's helping you recover." She followed the tube back up to a bag of fluid hanging off a pole. She wasn't familiar with the term, but the 'eye-vee' seemed to be putting water directly into her body.
She began to get a better sense of the room she was in. There were several machines on both sides of her, but none of them were making the beeping sound she was hearing. It seemed like it was actually coming from the other side of a curtain to her right. Next to where the woman stood was a cushioned chair where the man had been sitting and presumably sleeping. Despite never having been in the room before, there was something naggingly familiar about it, but the feeling slowly drifted away.
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but her throat refused to cooperate and she broke into a coughing fit. Placing his hand on her shoulder to keep her in the bed, the man looked at the woman and said, "Water." The woman looked around for a few seconds, then down at the white object in her hands with a scowl. She moved behind the wall to the girl's left and after a short rushing sound, she came back out and gave the man her cup before returning to her position by the wall. The man tilted her head up and began to slowly pour the water into her mouth. She gladly accepted the liquid, even as he carefully controlled the flow. The fluid had an odd taste to it, but it wasn't particularly a bad one.
After giving her about half the water in the cup, the man set it aside on a small surface—a table—to her right. He fiddled with something on the side of her bed and she felt it begin to bend, pushing her up so she could face them. The man walked back to where he had been before and dragged the chair closer to the bed to sit in it. He leaned forward, and the girl felt her heart beat several times before he spoke. "Do you remember what happened to you?"
The girl swallowed as she tried speaking again. "I don—" She stopped, alarmed by how differently her voice sounded from his. It was much higher pitched and far raspier. "I was in the… desert, and you gave me water. Then I…" I didn't kill them. What happened? "I don't remember after that."
"Can you tell me anything about what happened before we found you?"
"No."
The man leaned back in his chair. "Well, I suppose we should probably introduce ourselves. My name is Oliver Cyprus, and this is my partner, Laurel Tawn." He placed his hand on his chest as he referred to himself before gesturing toward the woman. With an upturn at the corner of his mouth, he added, "You can call her 'Tawny,' if you like."
She frowned at him. "So she can call you 'Mantis,' then?"
Oliver rubbed his neck, where the girl saw he actually had a picture of the insect drawing its foreleg over a pale lone: Scar. He shrugged. "Maybe not. So, uh, what's your name?"
The girl paused for a moment, trying to find that information somewhere in her mind. She knew it was a label individuals assigned to others to distinguish them from one another, but she didn't think she'd been given one yet. "I don't know," she admitted. "I've never had one before."
Laurel and Oliver looked at each other with… confusion. The woman arched her eyebrow. "What, like you don't remember?" Her voice was higher pitched like the girl's, but she didn't share the dry rasp.
The girl thought it over again. Her memories of what happened before the two had found her were fragmented, getting worse the further back she went, to the point where she couldn't remember anything. Despite that, she felt certain that her earlier statement was correct. "No," she repeated. "I was never assigned a name." She wasn't sure why the word 'assigned' seemed like the most precise word to use, but it was.
Oliver scratched his cheek. "Well we're going to have to call you something."
"You know," Laurel said, taking a step forward, "with her skin and hair, she kind of reminds me of those trees out northeast of Vale. What are they called…?"
"Birch?" the man offered.
"No, it starts with an 'A,' I think. Like, As… Ass-something."
"Aspen?"
"Yes!" the woman confirmed, snapping her fingers.
Oliver looked back to the girl. "What do you think? Does 'Aspen' work for you?"
She considered it for a moment. It didn't have quite the same ring to it that 'malicious' did, but she supposed it would do. There was something missing, though. "You both—" A tickle in the back of her throat caused her to begin coughing again. After Oliver gave her more of the water, she picked her sentence up where she'd left off. "—have two names."
The man stayed standing as he tried to think of something. "Gray?" he suggested, voice softer than before. Laurel looked at him with a rises eyebrow, and he responded by raising one of his shoulders.
The girl ignored the interaction. Aspen Gray. That sounded better, more… complete. That would work for her. "I like it." As she spoke, she began to feel a shakiness in her stomach. Vomit. She repeated the word out loud. The two adults began to panic, looking around the room for something. After a moment, Oliver pointed to a black bin which Laurel grabbed and brought over to hand to the girl. She felt the shakiness push its way up into her throat and, clutching the bin, began to involuntarily relieve her stomach of its contents.
Her body shook for a while as it expelled the watery fluid, and Oliver rubbed her back for the duration. The contact didn't sting like it had in the desert, possibly due to the loose garment she now wore. Instead, it actually felt… comforting. When her heaving finally stopped, he gave her more water, telling her to rinse her mouth out and spit it into the bin.
Once the process was complete, she leaned back into the bed, finding she was having difficulty keeping her eyes open. "We'll let you get some sleep," Oliver said, stepping away from her.
Sleep? No, she didn't need sleep. Before she could protest, however, the pair had already left the room. I don't need… Within moments, Aspen had succumbed to unconsciousness, one phrase repeating in her mind: Aspen Gray.
My name is Aspen Gray.
Fun fact: I actually came up with the name 'Aspen Gray' when trying to come up with a name for the doctor in Chapter 16 of my other story, Wayward Son. I liked it too much to waste on a throwaway character, though, so I saved it. Not long after, someone came along and asked if I would be willing to write another story, so I took the opportunity to use the name.
Anyway, that's all I've really got to say for now, other than I'm really enjoying writing this story and I hope you enjoy reading it as well! If you do, I encourage you to share your opinions in a review and follow the story for more! Adieu!