"Grandma's getting so worried about her little baby! It's getting dangerous out there in the wasteland!" she said, pulling the Courier to her side and patting her with her gargantuan hand. Although the sign of affection was on the borderline of crushing a rib, Six didn't even try to escape her embrace. She knew beyond a doubt that it would be in vain; Nightkin weren't beings to be argued with, and God help you if you ended up in a close confrontation with one. Besides, she meant no harm. She was just a little lost.
"We'll be ok, Lily." She responded, eventually being freed from the giant's grasp.
The two were walking down the highway on their way to the RepConn testing site. The Courier had heard rumors that the area was seeing feral ghouls, and decided to investigate. Even if the rumors were true, she didn't want to have Boone accompany her for protection. The only way to the site was through Novac, the town where he settled for however a short period of time, and- well, the memories that Novac would bring him wouldn't be pleasant ones. Not to mention the awkward conversations that would ensue if someone asked him about the sudden and mysterious death of Jeannie May…
Veronica was at the Hidden Valley bunker on her way back from an errand run, Arcade was treating patients from a riot that occurred in Freeside last night, and Cass said that she had some business in Westside to tend to… which probably meant that she was getting wasted at one of the bars on the Strip. So that left her with Lily. It wasn't that she disliked the kindly Nightkin, she just felt… uneasy… around her. Like most of her species, she was very unstable. She talked to a figment of her imagination too often for the Courier's comfort, and often referred to her as 'Jimmy', despite numerous talks from numerous people insisting that she was not.
But the Courier figured that the trip would do at least some good between the two of them. Even if Nightkin couldn't distinguish reality from their warped minds, they could distinguish someone they trusted from someone they didn't, and the Courier would much rather be the former.
She had not known Lily as long as she had known the rest of her regular companions. They had only met a week prior to the start of this adventure when Six ventured into Jacobstown looking for a doctor who could successfully replace Rex's brain. The doctor asked her to accompany Lily to investigate a nightstalker mutation in return when she received word of the feral ghouls at RepConn. The nightstalkers would have to wait, but Lily still insisted on joining her, regardless of her destination. Lily wasn't one for excessive conversation with others, and that didn't bother the Courier because she was honestly scared of her. The Nightkin at Jacobstown weren't friendly to humans, with Lily and Marcus being the only exceptions. Their prolonged Stealth Boy usage that made them a vital part of the Master's Army over a century ago had deteriorated their minds, making them hostile, schizophrenic, and lost. Lily didn't speak much about the Master's army, or how she became a part of it, but the Jacobstown doctor had filled the Courier in on a few pieces of Lily's past to make her more comfortable. It didn't ease her nerves much, but it was better than traveling with a psychopathic stranger.
It was the second day of their journey. The two had been walking since the late morning, and now that the sun was almost at the point of setting, they had to find a safe spot for shelter soon.
"Lily, I hate to say it, but we might have to stop to rest." Six sighed.
"It's getting dark, dearie. Then they won't be able to see us." The Nightkin said with a smile.
"I know, Lily, but we've been traveling all day. If this place is overrun with ferals like the rumors say, then I don't want to risk going in without being at least in decent shape. And who knows if they've spread out this far yet."
"Ok Jimmy, we can stop. Leo says that we should keep going, but I can tell him to wait. Where would you like to go?" she asked.
"There's a hotel just about a mile ahead of here," The Courier pointed into the distance, "Boone used to work there you know."
"Boone's a wonderful young man!" Lily beamed, "But he needs to get outside and play more. He's too quiet for such a good boy…he reminds me of my granddaughter. But Leo likes the way he smashes holes in people's heads from so far away! Leo likes to be close and chop, but he likes holes in heads too!"
"Leo?" Six asked without thinking. She immediately regretted her decision.
"Leo is a very bad man pumpkin! Yes you are, Leo, don't try to deny it! He tells me to do things, terrible things, and sometimes the medicine isn't enough to keep him quiet!" Lily explained.
The Courier was now traveling with a certified psychopath.
"But… There's no one there." Six stuttered, afraid of her reaction.
"Of course there is dearie. How else could I hear him tell me who to chop?"
Terrified, the Courier decided to change the subject. Fast.
"So Lily…" She nervously started, "You mentioned a granddaughter? Tell me about your grandchildren."
"Oh my," Lily said, her face lighting up in a way that the Courier hadn't seen before, "They were the light of my world… There was Jimmy, and then there was Becky. They were both my oldest son's children. Jimmy was eight and Becky had just turned five the day before the Vault was opened…"
Opened. The Courier knew the real meaning of this statement, but she didn't know if Lily truly did anymore.
"...Jimmy was such an energetic young man. He would bounce off the walls of his room and play baseball in the common room all day long. And he loved cars! Car models were all over his room; on his nightstand, on his shelves on the wall, on his dresser, everywhere! Now, Becky, she was a quiet one, but she was such a bright little girl. She would sit quietly in her room and practice chess when she wasn't busy with schoolwork, of course. She kept to herself mostly, but she was such a sweetheart. We used to bake cookies every Sunday afternoon after church. Chocolate chip peanut butter were her favorite…"
The Courier was relieved at the change of pace of the conversation. She was talking about real events and real people now in surprising clarity. They continued down Highway 95 until Novac and its signature landmark came into view.
"Look pumpkin! A dinosaur! Do you want to ride the dinosaur?" Lily exclaimed.
The Courier's heart, after listening to the Nightkin's stories for the past twenty minutes or so, shattered. She fought tears from her eyes as she made her way to the hotel lobby to get a room key.
"You may want to stay outside for now, Lily." The Courier said gingerly at the entrance.
"What's the matter, dearie? Afraid grandma will embarrass you in front of your little friends?"
"No…it just that…" she looked around, trying to see if anyone besides Manny Vargas in the dinosaur's mouth had seen the two of them yet. "People around here aren't used to your kind. They might get nervous. I'll be back soon, don't worry."
She opened the door, and went to the counter where Cliff Briscoe stood shuffling papers and sorting keys. At the sound of the door creaking, he looked up and smiled.
"Six! Old friend! What can I do for you?" he boomed with open arms.
"Hello Cliff," she smiled, leaning on the counter, "How much do I owe you for a room for the night?"
He hesitated. "Friend, I'm sorry to say that we're as packed as a caravan Brahmin right now. We've got no empty rooms left. It's from the scare of the RepConn ghouls coming down further from the site, you know. People want to feel safe. It's great for business, but it worries me a little bit wondering how bad it really gets up there…" he said with a grimace.
"So the rumors of ferals are true?" She asked.
"Yes ma'am." He nodded, eyes wide with fear, "We had a traveling couple come in tonight who said that they had to shoot three of them just a half mile down the road. No one feels safe around here anymore."
"That's actually my business in being here." She grinned, "But no rooms, huh?" The Courier sighed, "Do you know somewhere in Novac we could stay?"
"'We'?" Cliff asked, "Who's 'we'? Is Boone back with you?"
"Not Boone," Six quickly responded, "Just a friend."
He eyed her suspiciously, then whispered, "I wouldn't do this for anyone else, but people around here like you. They know you, and they know that you're not going to hold them at gunpoint and rob them blind in the middle of the night. If I was you, I'd go just on the outskirts of town here, and ask to stay in a shed or barn somewhere. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you explained to them what you're doing up there in the morning."
"All right…" Six said, slowly pulling away from the counter, "If you say so. Goodnight, Cliff."
"If you truly can't find anyone to put you up for the night, just drop my name." Cliff waved as she walked out the door. "Goodnight!"
She sighed as she quietly closed the door behind her. Great, she thought, nothing like being homeless and on the verge of a feral attack for the night. She walked with Lily to the edges of town, seeking a house with a shack or barn on its owner's property. Six finally struck a vein of luck when che came across an old Brahmin ranch. Perfect, she thought, now it's just the matter of getting inside…
She walked past the mailbox labeled 'McBride', and knocked on the door. A middle aged man with a thick, well-groomed mustache answered almost immediately.
"Hello," she grinned, "I'm Six-" she started.
"Hey there! In from out of town, ain't you? Name's Dusty." He said, tipping his leather cowboy hat at her.
"Yes sir" she smiled, "My friend and I are coming south from Boulder City."
"Boulder City? That's a heckuva ways for a day's walkin'! Where's your friend?" He asked. The Courier nervously pointed to the window where Lily was stroking a Brahmin's head. Dusty jumped back in surprise.
"No, no, it's ok!" The Courier whispered, as so Lily wouldn't hear her, "She's actually a Bighorner rancher in Jacobstown. She knows what she's doing."
Dusty rubbed the back of his neck and whistled, marveling at the size of Lily.
"Ever seen a Nightkin before?" the Courier chuckled.
"Oh, no. I tend to my ranch, that's about it. Alice'll tell you. I don't get out a whole lot." He stammered, still looking out the window at Lily, who now was stroking a Brahmin calf.
"How is business lately?" Six asked, trying to make him more comfortable.
"You must mean what's left of it." He sighed, "Somebody's been attacking our animals at night."
"Really?" Six asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes ma'am. We're down to less than half of what we had a few weeks back. Every night around midnight, Alice and I'll wake up to some crazy hollering and gun shots. You'd think the world was ending all over again. But it's just one animal each night. They don't take it or carve it up or nothing. Just leave it there, all full of holes."
"I actually came to you for a proposition." Six said sheepishly, "The motel is full, and we were going to ask permission to sleep in your barn for the night. We're headed up the RepConn site tomorrow, you see, to try to resolve the feral ghoul problem. We can keep watch over your Brahmin for you for the night. We might even be able to catch the culprit."
Dusty's eyes lit up, suddenly much more interested, "We'd be grateful. Especially if you find 'em before they get my whole stock. Seems like they've taken to shooting from the west side… But don't go getting yourself killed over it! Alice and I'll find a way to make do. Always have."
"Have you gotten a glimpse of the culprit before?" Six asked, trying to get an idea of what she was up against.
"Beg your pardon ma'am, but them two-headed beeves ain't worth getting shot over." Dusty said sternly, "Not to mention what would happen if half of what No-bark says is true… Whoever it is, I don't think they're from around town."
"Well, neither are we, so we have that much in common." Six smiled, "We'll let you know if we find anything, and we should be gone right after sunrise, so you won't have to worry about a thing." She said, closing the door.
"Appreciate the help!" Dusty called after her.
She returned to Lily's side where the Nightkin was stroking the Brahmin calf. The Courier didn't speak at first, simply because she was at a loss for words. It was strange, to see a being so associated with destruction and madness interacting so gently with such a delicate creature. Her gargantuan hands, cloaked in crude leather garden gloves, fondled the calf, softly running her hands from its head to its haunches. The Courier was reminded of a children's story that she had come across one day…something about a lion and a lamb lying down together…
"Isn't she adorable, dearie?" Lily asked her.
"She is," The Courier nodded, "Lily, we're going to sleep in the stable out here tonight, okay?"
"Okay pumpkin, if camping outside is what you want to do tonight." Lily said, still preoccupied with the calf.
"But there is something you should know, alright?" The Courier said, beginning to make a pile of fresh straw for their beds.
"What's that, dearie?"
"Someone has been coming around this farm around midnight every night and shooting the Brahmin." She started, "We're supposed to keep an eye out for who it is. Are you ok with that?"
"Shooting these precious animals?" Lily cooed. Her expression suddenly changed to a snarl. "It will be nice to give them a piece of my mind!" she growled.
The Courier decided to give her some space until dinner was ready.
Because she anticipated the motel to be available, the Courier did not pack a bedroll… or any sort of camping necessities really. So she made do with what she had, creating beds out of unused straw and eating ant nectar and maize that didn't need to be cooked over a campfire. As the night drew darker, Lily entertained the Courier with more stories of her grandchildren in the old Vault 17 until it was almost midnight. When it was five 'till, Six motioned for the both of them to take cover, so as their assailant wouldn't see them.
The Courier faced west and hid behind a pile of hay, her Gobi rifle at the ready.
"Alright, we know that the culprit is shooting the Brahmin, so it wouldn't be a feral." The Courier said to Lily, "…Just keep your eyes peeled for anything."
Minutes slowly passed until her Pip-Boy clock read midnight. The Courier was silent, her breaths slow and steady as she surveyed the area through her scope. Lily hid behind a much larger pile of hay, and was surprisingly quiet considering her vocal tendencies for the past few hours. Another five minutes passed, and still, nothing was to be seen. After another ten minutes of silence, the impatient Courier was about to give away her location to stand up and look for the target that hadn't appeared yet. But Lily held her head down behind cover.
"Someone's here, dearie." She whispered.
The Courier scoped the area from behind the hay bale once again, then doubled back again for good measure. Nothing.
"There's no one here, Lily." She sighed. Had the mysterious butcher given up for the night?
"Yes there is. Look over there, silly." Lily pointed to a boulder across the street about thirty yards away from the pen.
The Courier checked her scope one final time, to find exactly what she had found before: no one.
"Come with me, dearie. Stay close to grandma." Lily whispered. In an instant, the giant, hulking body of the Nightkin had disappeared, and the Courier jumped back in surprise. Lily took her hand so that Six would have a sense of where she was, and slowly led her across the railroad tracks at an angle. The two hid behind a second boulder, and Lily turned off her Stealth Boy.
"Do you hear him, sugar?" she whispered.
Six exhaled. The last thing she needed was a Nightkin's head voices getting to her too. The Courier had only let Lily take her across the tracks because she thought that no one was there, so there was no mission to compromise. But something caught her ear. It wasn't the scuttling of radscorpions or the faint mooing of the Brahmin. It almost sounded like… a voice. She could make out certain words, but at this range of whoever was speaking, most of their words were carried away by the Mojave wind.
The Courier crouched down, her rifle at the ready, and snuck towards the next boulder while Lily, under cover of her Stealth Boy, followed. She followed the voice to the boulder that Lily had originally pointed too, and ducked down on the opposite side of where the voice was coming from. There was silence.
"Head voices say someone close." A voice in thin air said, "Someone like us."
The deep voice sent chills down the Courier's spine. She reached into her belt and pulled out her .357, a much more practical weapon in close ranges. The sounds of her racing heartbeat paired with her panicked exhale were the last things she heard before the minigun started to go off beside her ear.
Six hit the ground, covering her ears, and dropping her gun. She looked across the tracks where a Brahmin's side began spurting blood. The animal bellowed loudly, unnaturally, before falling on its side. Lily turned off her Stealth Boy, pushed the Courier into cover, and rampaged towards the boulder.
"Get behind Grandma!" She roared, leaping over the rock and onto the invisible assassin.
The Courier, temporarily deafened by the shock of the enemy's weapon, could not hear the struggle between the two, and for this, she was glad. Lily unsheathed her sword, striking the air with it, and knocked her now-visible opponent down. It was a Nightkin, one of Lily's own kin.
Lily lunged at the Nightkin with her sword, and managed to slice into a good portion of his arm before he stood back up again. He opened his mouth, in what the Courier assumed was a scream, before twisting the blade out of his bicep with his other hand. Lily's sword fell to the ground, but she still lunged at him. The two engaged in a horrific fistfight, the enemy swinging his one good arm while the other hung limp at his side and Lily reaching for his throat with her massive hands. The Courier scuffled in the dirt, trying to find her gun in the dark while the two continued to beat each other. When she felt her hands touch something cold, she picked up her gun, cocked the hammer back, turned around, and fired.
The brawl stopped briefly. The Courier had managed to shoot the Nightkin in the thigh, bringing him down on one knee. Lily seized the moment, picked up her sword again, and drove it through the Nightkin's chest until he lay on the ground, blood gushing in waves out of his chest. But she continued to fight, stabbing his arms, his legs, and his chest until the Courier rushed over to her, and led her away.
She saw the backpack of the Nightkin that had fallen off of him in battle, and decided to search through it for an explanation, for whatever it was worth. She found a holotape, but didn't bother turning it on, because she knew it would be too quiet for her slowly recovering eardrums to hear.
"So…" The Courier said nervously, walking back to the stable with Lily, "What happened in that fight back there?"
"Oh pumpkin," Lily started. Her voice was anything but quiet, and at the moment, the Courier was grateful. "Grandma's sorry about that. Sometimes she gets mad and listens to Leo when she really shouldn't. The medicine is supposed to help with that, but sometimes grandma doesn't take it." Lily explained, a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
"Medicine?" she asked. How could she possibly be in this state of mind if she's taking medicine? She wondered. "Why don't you take it?"
"Sometimes it makes grandma forget things she doesn't want to forget, pumpkin. Doctor Henry calls them 'anti-psychotics'. I don't know what they're supposed to do, they just make my memory fuzzy."
A pang of guilt hit the Courier right in the gut. For someone who lives off the memory of their grandchildren-
"Noooo!" Lily screamed, rushing towards the corral. She leapt over the fence, and ran to the side of a fallen Brahmin… but this one was much smaller than the others. Lily knelt beside it, wiping the blood off of its side with a handkerchief on her belt, stroking its fur like she had only a few hours ago when both of them had a peaceful state of mind. She looked into its large brown eyes that had seen so little of the world that it deserved, and that they never would get the chance to do so. Her hands wrapped around its hooves, still soft with youth, which would never get the opportunity to travel the Mojave. She continued to run her fingers through its fur for a while, before standing up again, and going back over towards the dead Nightkin.
"Where are you going?" Six asked her.
"He… he… he needs… to pay-"She struggled with her words, placing her hands over her face.
"Lily, look at me." The Courier said softly, "He's dead. You did your job. There's nothing else you can do about it." She cautiously placed a hand into hers. "It's okay… it's going to be ok…"
"You're… you're right, dearie." She sighed. "Hush, Leo, it's medicine time now!" she growled as she took a bottle of pills out of a belt pocket and swallowed one.
The Courier backed away slowly, and suggested that the two of them go to sleep.
"Grandma's here! Yaaaaay!"
Six slowly awoke to the sound of a child's voice. She began to wonder why Lily had turned on the radio, because she almost never listened to music, but as she listened closer, she realized that it was a holotape of a conversation between real people.
"Oh! My goodness! Look at these little angels! Becky that dress looks so lovely! And Jimmy! Oh, my word, how you've grown!" an elderly woman said sweetly.
"I'm four whole feet, Grandma!" a little boy proudly boasted.
"Did you bring us presents, Grandma?" a small girl asked.
The Courier then realized that this wasn't just a tape of a conversation. These were Lily' s own grandchildren.
"Well now, I don't know… Have you been good to your mommy and daddy?" the elderly woman teased.
"Yes!" the children cheered in unison.
"Well now, let Grandma-"
The message faded into an unintelligible mess of static. Lily turned off the holotape and turned around to the now awake Courier.
"Good morning, dearie." She smiled, "Did you sleep well?"
"I did, thank you." Six grinned, "What was that recording you had there?"
"Oh that old thing? That's a holotape from the last time I visited my grandkids. Such sweet children, you know. Little angels. Sometimes it's hard to remember them, so I take that old tape out from time to time and listen."
"What makes it hard to remember?" The Courier asked. She jumped to the assumption of old age. After all, Lily was two hundred and three years old. The human mind wasn't meant to be prolonged like this.
"It's my medicine, dearie." She answered, "It keeps me calm, but it makes my memory go all fuzzy. That's why I only take my dosage every other time. That way, at least I remember their faces."
Six held back tears as she made her way to Lily's side. This was one of the most feared creatures of the wastes, a brute with unmatched strength and a reputation of a deathclaw. And this was what kept her sane. The reminder that she was human once, that she had deep emotions, fond memories, and the greatest love that the Courier had never known: a family.
Was there a greater irony that the only thing that would make her mentally sound would destroy the memories of the reason she woke up every morning?
They sat together on top of a high hay bale, Six's hand in Lily's, watching the Mojave sky turn into streaks of orange and purple as the sun slowly rose.
"Isn't it beautiful?" The Courier marveled.
"Yes, dearie. I haven't missed a sunrise in one hundred and twenty-eight years. I remember when I saw the sun for the first time… It was the day the vault was opened. It was a strange day, with sights and sounds that I had never seen or heard before, but the sun… Oh, the sun was high in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. That's why I never miss the sunrise. Each one is different. They never look the same, but they're all wonderful."
They watched the star billions of miles away climb over the peaks of the Rockies as Lily attempted to repair her sword from last night's scuffle, and the Courier packed all of their gear back into their bags. At seven, the two were ready to head west towards the RepConn site.
"Before we leave, I'm going to let Dusty know about last night." The Courier told Lily, pointing to his house.
"Take your time, sugar. I'll be right here." She said, rubbing a handkerchief across the sword's blade.
"Actually, I thought you would want to come with me." Six smiled, "After all, you saved the rest of the flock and took care of the Nightkin yourself."
Lily's face broke into a wide grin, and she followed the Courier, sword in hand, to the front of Dusty's house. Six gave the door three slow knocks before Alice McBride opened the door.
"Hello, stranger!" She beamed, "Dusty told me that he was allowing two travelers to stay in our barn tonight. I'll admit, I was a little worried when he brought it up just before bedtime, especially when he said that….um…. there were two of you… But he said that you had volunteered to guard the animals, and I figured that you were just being an old fashioned Good Samaritan."
"Thank you for allowing us to stay, Mrs. McBride-"The Courier started.
"Good morning!" Dusty boomed, emerging from the kitchen. "Oh, where are my manners? This is Ms. Daisy Whitman from just up the street, over here." He introduced, motioning towards an older woman at the kitchen table.
"Pleasure to meet… you…" Daisy said, standing up and catching a glimpse of the second traveler behind Six.
"We all do breakfast every Friday morning." Alice explained.
"So, down to business:" Dusty said, sitting down at the table and interlocking his fingers, "We heard a commotion out there last night. Did you manage to catch 'em?"
"We did." The Courier smiled, "Actually, it was mostly Lily. Your losses would have been a whole lot more if she wasn't there."
"Losses?" Dusty asked.
"Yes," The Courier replied sadly, "There was a heifer and the calf. But the rest are fine to the best of my knowledge. And he won't be coming back anymore."
"So who was doing it?" Alice asked.
The Courier hesitated. "It was… a Nightkin. He was using a Stealth Boy to hide himself every night." She reached into her pack, pulling out a holotape before continuing, "I found this on him. It doesn't explain much, but there was no other obvious reason for why he was doing this. It's just him rambling about how the Brahmin 'get into his head at night and keep him awake'…? I don't know. But you don't have to worry about it anymore."
"A Nightkin, huh?" Dusty rubbed the back of his neck, looking out the window to his pasture, "Well ain't that a kick… Anyway, I appreciate all you've done. And your friend. Help yourself to the steaks in the fridge if you need something for your journey, and I reckon you can do something with this-" he said, holding a pouch of caps.
Six pushed the bag of caps back to Dusty. "Keep it. Use them to replenish your stock here. Or buy a bigger stable. Lily had some trouble fitting in last night." She joked.
"Well, I ain't about to send you on your way empty handed, so take some steaks. Nothing better to eat out there, I can tell you that. The least I can do." He shrugged.
"If you insist." The Courier smiled, and made her way back to the kitchen. Lily stayed at the front door, where Daisy still stood, struck speechless.
"She's safe, don't worry." Alice whispered to her.
"No, I know it's just that… her sword… I'm getting the strangest feeling of Déjà vu right now, like I've seen it somewhere before…" Daisy stammered.
"Leo taught me how to make it!" Lily grinned. At the mention of Leo, the Courier ran from the kitchen back to the door before the friendly Nightkin started scaring people.
"Well, thank you for letting us use your barn!" Six smiled, "And thank you for the wonderful steaks! Even if we- err, I get radiation sickness up there, we sure won't starve."
"Many thanks to you again!" Dusty called to her as she walked out the door, "Happy trails!"
The duo walked past the motel, packs loaded, and guns in hand, ready to venture up the mountain to their destination. The Courier waved to Manny Vargas in the dinosaur's mouth, and he gave her a salute in return.
"Before we head off for good, do you need anything?" Six asked Lily.
"Oh Jimmy, don't worry. Grandma has plenty of things for the trip." She reassured her.
"Lily…" The Courier started, a tear forming at the corner of her eye, "I think you have me confused for someone else."
"Oh…of course I have dearie. How silly of me..." Lily said, embarrassed and confused.
It was in that moment that the Courier realized that Lily was fighting a battle that was lost long ago. When her options were becoming a lunatic, forgetting her family, or in the continuum of confusion somewhere in between the two, there wasn't a winning side to this. Six didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse: to forget a lifetime and another of sorrow, yet to forget everything. She didn't know what Lily knew anymore, and maybe that was the saddest realization of all. That was the Mojave for you.
"Where are your parents, sweetie?" Lily asked her as they began their ascent up the mountain.
"I don't know." The Courier answered, "I don't remember much about my life past this spring."
"You should go see Doctor Henry." Lily suggested, "He might be able to help you remember. You don't take medication, do you?"
"No," Six reassured her, "No I don't. I've been to a lot of doctors, and they say that they can't do anything about it. I was shot in the head twice, you see. I don't remember anything before that."
"That must have hurt, dearie. I'm sorry you can't remember. You know, sometimes I have trouble remembering things too. Like my grandkids! There was Jimmy and little Becky. Jimmy was going into third grade, and Becky, the smart little thing, had skipped kindergarten and was about to start first grade. Jimmy's favorite treat was chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and Becky's was….Becky's was….Now, we baked them every Sunday afternoon…It was a kind of cookie… Oatmeal? No, that wasn't it… I think they had almonds in them…"
The Courier then wished to remember for Lily's sake. The Nightkin told her this very fact last night on the way to Novac. Of every conversation that her waking mind could remember, she wished she could go back to yesterday evening and simply pay a little more attention to that one. She didn't want to watch Lily slip into the darkness that so many Nightkin before her had fallen into. But there was nothing she could do about it.
Then the Courier realized that Lily wasn't so different from her after all. The only difference between the two of them was that the Courier had the luxury of being able to create a new life, whereas Lily was caught in the middle of memory and sanity.
So the two ventured on, into the wasteland and into the future, seeking remnants of their past, whether they were already forgotten, or soon-to-be.
Footnotes:
Like many characters in New Vegas, Lily doesn't really get a happy ending. I put myself in the Courier's shoes as trying to work with a certain member of a species that had a reputation for slaughtering anything that got in their way. I tried to show how Lily was so different than the other nightkin individuals by comparing her with the Brahmin attacker mostly; they both use Stealth-Boys, carry holotapes of what is important to them, and have the same mental conditions, yet they are two polar opposites of the Nightkin spectrum. Then there was the struggle of showing her mental deterioration of course. This piece went much better than I thought it would to be honest, but I'm still not sure what to think of it. Reviews, critiques, and anything else are greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!