If only they knew what I really do for them.
Slogging through icy, irradiated water, cradling my Infiltrator like a child - an infinitely precious child that my life depends upon - in my arms, I reflect on the nature of responsibility, and of the strange processes we go through that change us. Or that force us to change ourselves; I haven't decided which.
Funny how philosophical I get when I'm in mortal danger.
I can hear one up ahead; at least I hope it's only one. With their creepy carapacial clicking, you rarely can tell for sure. Another two infinitely slow, patient steps, and I'm out of the water, sheltering behind a curve in the tunnel around which I can peek and see...one Mirelurk. Now that I have a good view of the miniature cavern it's in, I can be quite sure there's just the one. Mirelurks are rarely content to merely lurk.
Mirelurks rarely merely lurk.
What an interesting turn of phrase. Almost worthy of a poem, as is the way I kill it, stepping smoothly out, already shouldering my weapon in a movement so ingrained it's practically an autonomic response, aiming, tracking the rear curve of its carapace as it turns towards the sound of my boot coming down, waiting for the perfect moment I know is coming. As it sees me and pushes off its back leg to build up momentum to slam into me with, its face briefly comes up almost perfectly square to me, and I squeeze a three round burst right through that poorly armoured face and into its brain. The clatter as it falls is the loudest sound yet to echo off these dripping walls, and I freeze, waiting for a sound that indicates more are on the way.
A slow count to a hundred and twenty and I relax a little. Harvest the meat, rinse and repeat.
Three more dead Mirelurks and I've reached my goal. One of the larger pools in this old mine is deep enough for them to gestate their physically disgusting yet astonishingly tasty egg clusters. They keep setting it up; this is the third time I've destroyed this one. They breed like...something pretty fecund. As I harvest as many eggs as I can carry for my beloved, that crazy phrase keeps going around in my head. Mirelurks rarely merely lurk.
I want to laugh at the absurdity of it, but absurd or not, it's true, and what I'm seeing down here is seriously depressing me. My secret visits to the cave are becoming more and more frequent and yet every time I come, they're ahead of where they were before. What are they eating, how are they breeding? Soon this will become too much for one man to contain. My love is the only one who knows what I do down here, though I think Leaf Mother Laurel suspects.
Sometimes I fear that my life is like the life cycle of a creature I saw once, in a pre-war book far away. It was called a butterfly, and it started life as something like a green worm with hundreds of legs. After going around for a while eating greenery (for all the world was green back then, not just our too-small corner of it) it would spin a chrysalis around itself and gestate for a time, then emerge as this beautiful winged creature.
I used to think that my life was akin to that creature's life cycle, and it gave me comfort. I used to think my time with the Brotherhood was like the caterpillar, and the Outcasts like the chrysalis, and that the Deathclaw had ripped me out of it and sent me to this beautiful place where I could live as a butterfly with the love of my life.
Now I fear I'm still in the chrysalis.
What is to become of us?